


Night & Day

by IAmTheNightman98



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Lesbian AU, Phone Sex, Smut, and just poor mental health in general, lawyer AU, trigger warning depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-05-12 01:06:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 51,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19218505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheNightman98/pseuds/IAmTheNightman98
Summary: Brooke is exhausted, frustrated, and dangerously close to a breakdown. Regular people would seek out the comfort of friends, or the support of a therapist, but not Brooke.No, instead, Brooke decides to pour out her deepest, darkest emotions to the unsuspecting adult phone line operator, Vanjie.





	1. Chapter 1

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps. 

 

Well, Brooke Lynn Hytes is the woman that never sleeps. 

 

Anxiety, restlessness and an unshakable sense that everything is on the verge of crumbling at any given minute will do that to a person. 

 

She isn’t foolish enough to walk alone in the city at night. In the office, she’s powerful. She wears tailored suits and red lipstick and an icy glare that says “try me, I dare you”. But on the streets, she’s just another anonymous stranger with an expensive haircut that acts as an open invitation to any potential muggers. 

 

She’s bold and daring and unafraid, but she isn’t stupid. 

 

She isn't afraid of the dark. 

 

On the nights when she loses track of time and leaves it so late that if she wanted to call a cab home she’d have to walk down to the curb alone, she decides it's easier to just stay in the office. She curls up on the supposedly luxurious, but very uncomfortable, sofa, locks her office door, lowers the blinds, and prays for sleep that never comes. 

 

Struggling to sleep in the slightly too cold, dimly lit office is much better than the alternative of being in her apartment, still being unable to sleep and realising that maybe the office isn’t the problem. 

 

Brooke sighs, staring at the phone in her hand, confronting the growing realisation that there's nobody to call. No friend. No family. No lover. During the day, she’s never off the phone. She flicks between the voices of clients and colleagues all day long. But its all meaningless when its one in the morning and she’s desperate to hear the sound of another persons voice but theres nobody to fucking call. 

 

She pinches the bridge of her nose and inhales sharply, then crosses back to her desk to retrieve a crumpled business card from her bottom drawer. 

 

She’d seen the card in the footwell in the back of a cab a few weeks ago and decided that nobody would miss it if she took it.  _ Feeling Lonely?  _ The ad taunts her. 

 

The front of the card depicts a roughly drawn sketch of a woman, lips parted as if in the middle of an elongated moan, phone pressed to her ear. Brooke doesn’t know why she takes out the card, since she’s looked at it enough times to memorize the number on the back. 

 

Brooke glances nervously back to her office door, which she already knows is locked, sits down in the chair behind her desk, and turns her phone over in her hand. 

 

Two rings. Then a pre-recorded, low, sultry voice of a woman instructing her to listen to the menu, and press the number of the most appealing option. Brooke cringes as the woman’s voice rattles off a list of fetishes and kinks before running through a list of alphabetical names. 

 

Brooke doesn’t realise that she’s almost at the end of the list and still yet to make a choice until the woman reaches the ‘R’ names. Then S. Then T. 

 

Time to make a choice or she’ll have to listen to the list again.

 

There are no ‘U’ names, the list skips straight to V. 

 

Brooke selects a name. 

 

There’s a connecting beep. 

 

“Hello, baby,” a deep, throaty voice purrs in her ear. “This is Vanjie.”

 

-x-

 

Brooke has never done this before. She never usually has to do any work to snag a woman and bring her to bed. This truth comes tumbling from her lips like a confession - the first words she says to Vanjie. 

 

“Ain’t nobody told you there's a first time for everything?”

 

She’s not particularly eloquent, given the fact that it’s her job to speak. Brooke considers ending the call. 

 

“You still there? Cause you know you get charged even if you aren’t speaking.” 

 

Brooke makes a non committal grunt in response and shifts uneasily in her chair. She’s shaking. 

 

“You want me to start?”

 

“I’m so unhappy,” Brooke blurts out before she realises her mouth is open. 

 

“Oh. You can call back and get another girl if you just-“

 

“Not with you,” Brooke clarifies, then pauses briefly. “With everything. With life.” The words fall from her lips like the first drips in a leaky pipe that threatens to burst and flood the whole building.

 

“You realise it's free to call the Samaritans, right?” 

 

Brooke thinks she’s going to cry, but somehow it comes out as laughter. 

 

-x-

 

One of the many downsides to sleeping in her office is that there's nowhere to hide when the sun comes up. 

 

The floor-to-ceiling windows with no drapes had seemed like a good idea when she’d been offered her promotion. The entire office had screamed executive and grandeur. But now, all that’s screaming is Brooke’s head when she wakes up at the crack of dawn after next to no sleep. 

 

The daylight is harsh and heavy, but for some reason she doesn’t struggle to get up as much as she usually does. She glances at her phone on the coffee table. 

 

She pushes herself up from the leather couch, re-folds the decorative afghan and drapes it over the armrest, then plumps up the flattened pillows. In her private bathroom there’s a small closet where she keeps a spare suit, so she changes quickly and re-applies her makeup. The mask she wears, ready to start the day. 

 

When her assistant Ariel brings Brooke her morning coffee, she wont know that Brooke spent the night in her office again.

 

When Nina comes to drop off the court schedule for the following week, she won’t know that the reason Brooke actually managed to sleep at all was that she poured her heart out to a stranger on the phone, through a sex hotline no less. 

 

-x- 

 

The night is lit up with stars. Brooke is in her own apartment, she feels like an intruder. The best interior designer in the city had planned every last detail of the space around her, from the delicate crystals of the ornate lights that hang from the ceiling, to the Persian silk rug that lays beneath her feet. 

 

It’s pretty. 

 

It isn’t home. 

 

It’s a home designed for someone who is elegant and vibrant and confident, not just someone who pretends to be. 

 

Her brows furrow as she looks down at the phone in her hands, as though she hasn't decided how she’s going to spend the rest of her evening. 

 

There’s no harm to it, she tells herself as she dials the number and waits for the pre-recorded menu. 

 

-x- 

 

For someone who has commitment issues, Brooke has a strikingly addictive personality. 

 

For a while it was gambling. Then drinking. Cigarettes are her current vice, but she can see Vanjie quickly becoming her next. 

 

She calls Vanjie four times in the first week. The following week, six. It doesn’t take long to become a habit. 

 

Sex is not on the menu in their nightly talks, although Vanjie’s voice certainly makes her warm and conjours up images of sweat-slicked skin and rumpled sheets. Her specialism is BDSM and dirty talk, but until now she’s yet to mention any of it. They talk about everything and anything that comes up, except for sex. 

 

Brooke has no trouble telling Vanjie how much she hates her job. 

 

Ever since she’d been old enough to know what it meant, Brooke had known she wanted to be a lawyer. She thought she was going to make waves and change the world. But now, like everything else, the illusion has shattered.

 

Maybe that’s why Brooke likes talking to Vanjie so much. She’s an illusion that Brooke can buy into. 

 

Vanjie won't tell Brooke her real name, even though Brooke told her hers. 

 

Brooke shares with Vanjie dreams that will never see fulfilment, like how she’s always wanted to be brave enough to sleep out under the stars. Or climb a mountain.

 

Or sell her car and quit her job and run away and never look back. 

 

“What colour is your hair?” Brooke asks out of nowhere one evening. She’s desperate to have some sort of teather to reality. She needs to know something about Vanjie that’s real. 

 

“What colour would you like it to be, baby?” Vanjie purrs. 

 

“Tell me,” Brooke rasps, “please.”

 

“Brown. You wanna know how big my tits are?”

 

“Not now. Tell me about your eyes.”

 

“They’re brown too. My panties are-“

 

“No,” Brooke cuts her off. “Tell me what perfume you use.”

 

-x- 

 

It became their pattern. Long conversations about nothing and everything. Then Brooke would ask Vanjie a little about herself, chipping away at her gradually. 

 

She’s a grad student. She won’t say what she studies or at which school, but she let it slip once that she lives in New York too. She’s five foot four, around six inches shorter than Brooke, and she has a tattoo on her chest of a sphynx cat surrounded by a rose. 

 

Brooke believes her about the tattoo, because it seems too ridiculous and specific to be made up, which in turn makes her believe everything else Vanjie tells her, including the perfume she wears. 

 

Daisy by Marc Jacobs. Nearly fifty dollars a bottle. Brooke knows because she finds it in a drugstore easily enough. There’s nothing strange with buying it to replace her own French fragrance that costs four times as much. 

 

At the end of the month, when her phone bill teeters dangerously close to a thousand dollars, she thinks maybe it’s a good thing that she started wearing a cheaper perfume anyways. 

 

-x- 

 

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Vanjie tells her one night. 

 

“You have?”

 

“Hmm.” The soft velvety purr in her voice causes Brooke’s breath to hitch in her throat. “I’ve been thinkin’ about you fuckin’ me.”

 

“Oh.”

 

It shouldn’t be surprising, her service does promise sex through the lines, after all. “You um,” Brooke stammers, “you’d like that?”

 

“Yes, Mami, I’d like that,” she sighs seductively. 

 

“I’d like that too.”

 

“Tell me what you’d do to me.”

 

Brooke’s hands go clammy and her mouth goes dry. It’s not like she hasn’t thought about it, because God knows she has. She’s thought about fucking Vanjie in the centre of her king sized bed. Pressed up against the marble tiles in her shower. In the back seat of her convertible. There aren’t many ways that she  _ hasn’t  _ imagined fucking Vanjie. But verbalising that is a different issue altogether. 

 

Vanjie startles her with the sound of sputtering that turns into harsh, gravely laughter. Brooke holds the phone away from her ear, hearing Vanjie still despite the difference. Her laugh is unsettling. Hardly pleasant to the ear, yet somehow enticing non the less. 

 

“What’s so funny?” Brooke demands. 

 

“That you can talk my ear off for hours on end, but when it comes to sex you aint got nothing to say.”

 

Brooke’s fists clench at her sides. She doesn’t even know why she’s angry, since Vanjie is right. Fuck it. 

 

“I’d lift you up against a wall. Your legs over my shoulders and hands in my hair. My tongue in your cunt.”

 

She hears Vanessa draw in a sharp breath. “Damn.”

 

-x- 

 

After that night, most of their conversations will eventually veer to sex. 

 

Brooke groans, her head pressing heavily into the pillow as she rubs her clit in furious, rapid strokes. The phone is on speaker beside her head and she can hear Vanjie’s deep, throaty moans. The type of moan that could drive even the saintliness to confession. 

 

“Do you like it when mommy fucks you like this, baby?” Brooke breathes out through gritted teeth. 

 

Vanjie had started the mommy thing. Brooke runs with it, loving how dirty it makes her feel. 

 

“Mommy,” she moans, “I’m coming.”

 

She’s lying. Brooke knows she’s lying. But she reaches orgasm to the sound of Vanjie screaming her name nonetheless. Brooke’s body goes limp and she sinks further into her bedding, a faint smile on her lips. Vanjie sighs. Brooke turns to the phone and tries to imagine a short brunette Latina, flushed with sweat and mirroring her satisfaction, laying beside her instead. 

 

Vanie murmurs, “I’ve never come so hard.”

 

It’s bullshit, but Brooke doesn’t care. She’s never felt this good. “That’s what you say to everyone.”

 

“Hmm. But I mean it this time.”

 

Brooke narrows her eyes at the phone. Then it comes. 

 

Vanjies loud, uncouth laugh that has somehow become Brooke’s favourite sound. 

 

-x- 

 

“Brooke, I don’t know if you want me to ask, but I’m gonna ask anyways,” Vanjie told her one night. 

 

“Nothing is off the table with us, baby girl,” Brooke assured her, relaxing against the pillows. Post orgasmic bliss will make a person say a lot of things they don’t mean. 

 

“Why don’t you just quit your job?”

 

Brooke laughs. “Do you think I could afford to talk to you this often with no job?”

 

Vanjie laughs too, then her voice drops to a more serious tone once more. “I’m serious. You tell me about how you wanna see the world, or at least get outa this damn city. You hate your job, so why do you still do it?”

 

Brooke wants to tell her so shut up. She has no business. They’ve been talking night after night for almost three months and she’s never offered so much as a shred of advice. She isn’t supposed to ask questions like this, no matter how right she is. 

 

“Because I’m scared that without it, I’ll have nothing.”

 

-x- 

 

Brooke is too lazy to make herself breakfast, so most days she’ll force down a slice of toast and a crappy cup of coffee in Mama Cain’s Diner, a block away from her office building. It’s funny, going to a diner that specialises in sugary pastries and ordering the plainest thing on the menu.  

 

The diner is usually busy, but Brooke will always get her preferred table of a booth by the window. A twenty dollar tip on a five dollar order will see to that. 

 

She eats quietly, absently watching the city go by. The ebbs and flows of the pedestrians, all with places to go and things to do. All with so much enthusiasm for life, unlike her. Besides dredging through case after case of the same inconsequential problems and nightly phone calls with a sex hotline, Brooke doesn’t have much to be enthusiastic about. 

 

There’s something freeing about just being a voice to someone. Brooke can shed the protective layer of power suits and six inch heels in exchange for her softest pyjamas and mismatched underwear. Vanjie paints a picture of herself in ornate, sensual garments and silk lingerie, but Brooke imagines that image is a front too. 

 

Brooke can see herself in the reflection of the window. She purses her red lips slightly. Even she has to admit, she’s good at what she does. As not only a lawyer, but a boss, the ability to strike fear into people with just a glance is a welcome one. In her reflection she can see a sharp, well put together woman who knows exactly what she wants and how she’s going to get it.

 

It’s a shame that the reflection lies. 

 

As she raises her steaming cup of coffee to her lips, she hears the sound of laughter in the diner and glances briefly to a group of students huddled into a booth. 

 

The coffee is too hot to drink, but she drinks it anyways. The laughter continues, but one laugh from the group pierces through the rest like a siren on a highway. It’s loud and harsh and ought to be downright irritating. But it isn't. 

 

Brooke stills, realising where she’s heard that laugh before. 

 

She holds her breath, knowing without a doubt who that laughter belongs to, willing herself to just turn around and look back at their table again. 

 

And she does. 

 

Voluminous brown curls. Dazzling white teeth. Petite and angelic looking by all accounts, but with the laughter of a nineteen-twenties mob boss. The most beautiful face Brooke has ever seen. 

 

Brooke swallows. There’s a tattoo on the woman’s chest. She’s talking with such animation and moving so quickly that Brooke can't make out what it is, not that she needs to. She knows that its a cat within a rose. 

 

Definitely the most beautiful face Brooke has ever seen. 

 

Just as quickly as Brooke had turned round to face the group, they are getting up to leave. Brooke tries to avert her gaze so that she isn’t caught staring, but it's impossibly difficult.

 

For a moment, Brooke considers that she may have been struck by a car on her way in to work this morning and as a cruel twist of fate, the afterlife too is composed of dreams that will always be slightly out of reach. But no, this isn't the afterlife. This isn’t a dream. This is real. 

 

She’s real. She’s exactly how she described herself. 

 

She’s real. 

 

Brooke flings a handful of bills onto the table and grabs her coat as she leaves to go after the group. 

 

The sidewalk is crowded but Vanjie is like a beacon. Or a siren, the mythical creature that uses beauty and sexuality to lure men to their deaths. If that’s what Vanjie is, Brooke will follow her all the same. 

 

Brooke weaves her way through the crowds, keeping her eyes on Vanjie, her heart racing and her gait unsteady due to how badly her knees are shaking. Why she’s doing this, she has no idea. It’s a mistake. It’s not like she can just ambush this poor girl in the middle of the street. 

 

She follows them until they turn the corner and then a little more, then stops by a news stand as they cross towards a building that makes up part of the Fashion Institute of Technology. Vanjie is laughing still. She seems to be the focus of attention in her circle of friends and Brooke can see why. It’s impossible to look away from her, even for a moment. 

 

If people were instruments, Vanjie would be an entire orchestra. 

 

Brooke goes back to the diner and finds Shuga wiping their table clean. 

 

“The group that were just sat here. The tall one, the redhead, the-“

 

“Yeah I know ‘em.” Shuga mutters with a shrug as she sprays the table with disinfectant. “College kids.”

 

“The short Latina, do you know her?”

 

“Not personally,” Shuga laughs, “why?”

 

“Do you know her name?” Brooke aks, unsure whether she wants to know the answer. 

 

“It’s Vanessa.”

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa’s job is simple. She answer the phone, she listens to the sexual fantasies of a stranger, she fakes an orgasm, then she hands up and waits for the next caller. 
> 
> But the simplicity falls away one evening when she gets a call from a very lonely sounding woman, as does the idea that the shouldn’t get attached to her clients.

Some students work as servers. Or bar staff. Or intern for shitty bosses at long hours just to make ends meet.

 

Vanessa does none of those things. 

 

Sure, the academic scholarship she receives from the Fashion Institute of Technology doesn’t cover her board and lodging, but she has an alternative means of financially supporting herself. 

 

She finds the job by accident, really. She gets drunk with her friends and they laugh uncontrollably over the idea that they’d make more money if they dropped out of their degrees and started selling their asses on the streets. It had been a joke, at the time, but later that evening Vanessa finds herself searching for jobs with flexible hours and generous pay, and phone sex work is one of them. 

 

It doesn’t take her long to get the hang of it, most of the callers are more interested in the sound of their own voices, which suits Vanessa well. She loves to talk, everyone who’s been around her for longer than half an hour could tell you that, but when she’s on the phone with callers, silence with a well timed moan suits her just fine.

 

Sexually, Vanessa gets nothing out of the calls, but there’s something so uniquely interesting about hearing the sexual fantasies of complete strangers. The kinks that they’d never tell anyone else about, the pet names they like to be called. There’s never a dull moment on the job, that’s for sure. 

 

-x-

 

Vanessa grimaces as she finds her cupboards bare of food, aside from an old looking pack of instant noodles. 

 

One of the down sides to her work is that, whilst the hourly rate is very good, she’s yet to build up enough callers to earn a substantial amount of money. She can just about cover rent, groceries and an overpriced coffee on the way into class every morning. 

 

As she eats her noodles, she finishes flicking through a chapter of her technical design textbook, then has a quick shower before throwing on her pyjamas and preparing for her first caller. On most nights, she switches on the crappy old mobile that she uses for work at eleven pm, and leaves it on until two am, since those seem to be the most profitable hours. 

 

At five to eleven, Vanessa climbs into bed and waits for the first caller. 

 

“You’re in for a night to remember. This is Vanjie,” she says, affecting a lazy drawl. 

 

The man is one of her return clients whose name she doesn’t remember. He asks to be called ‘Sir’, so she doesn’t suppose it matters. She sighs slightly as she remembers her last call with him. 

 

He’d been harmless enough, at first. But the guy has some seriously  disturbing fantasies. That’s another one of the downsides to the job. She gets a lot of sick, twisted people calling, but if she still wants to get paid, there’s nothing she can do other than shut up and listen. 

 

“Vanjie,” he grunts. Vanessa flinches as she hears the audible rasp of a zipper. “I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

 

“What’ve you been thinkin about, Sir?” she asks, making her voice extra breathy and small. 

 

“Shut up,” he mutters. “Tell me what you’re wearing.”

 

“Silk panties, Sir, just how you like me,” she tells him as she pulls at a fraying string on her faded band t-shirt.

 

“I want to rip them off you. Throw you down onto the bed. Blind fold you. Then I’d take a rope and-“

 

That’s when Vanessa checks out. She rolls her head back onto the pillow and stares at the chipped paint on her ceiling as she listens to him describe the deplorable and cruel things he’d want to do to her. Sometimes, the callers fantasies are interesting. Sometimes, she thinks she could’ve gone her whole life without wanting to hear them. She cries out and moans on cue, ignoring the sickening mess gathering in her stomach that will make her feel like throwing up later. 

 

The session lasts for around half an hour, which is about thirty dollars. 

 

If God is merciful, her next caller will be easier. 

 

Wishful thinking. 

 

-x-

 

Vanessa doesn’t tend to get many callers on week nights, so at around one am when all she’s had so far is the call from the creep and a couple of 90 second long prank calls from teenage boys, she decides to switch off the phone early and get a good night’s sleep.

 

She’s just about to disconnect her phone and curl up in bed when a call comes through. 

 

What’s the harm in one more?

 

“Hello, baby,” she purrs. “This is Vanjie.”

 

“I’ve never done this before,” comes a woman’s voice and Vanessa’s ears perk up. This is her first female caller. “I never thought I’d do this,” the woman tells her. 

 

“Ain’t nobody told you there's a first time for everything?”

 

Vanessa can hear what seems to be the sound of a chair squeaking, but the woman doesn’t reply. Vanessa gives her another moment to get comfortable, then checks to make sure the woman is still there. 

 

“You want me to start?” Vanessa prompts. If she can't keep this woman on the line she won't get paid and she really, really needs the money. 

 

Then, the unexpected happens. The woman says she’s unhappy with her life. Vanessa stills. Whatever this woman is going through, Vanessa is not equipped to handle. She suggests that the woman try calling the Samaritans instead, but it comes out sounding like a joke. 

 

The woman laughs. But it isn't a regular kind of laugh. It’s an awful, heart wrenching sound that seems to be dragged from the woman’s soul. Vanessa thinks twice about disconnecting the call. 

 

“Why did you call me, baby?” Vanessa asks, praying that somehow the answer to this woman’s problems is anonymous phone sex, since that’s all she has to offer. 

 

“I um,” the woman stammers, “I just wanted to hear someone call me by my name instead of ‘Ms Hytes’.”

 

Fuck. Vanessa is a gonner. 

 

“Tell me your name,” Vanessa says softly.

 

“It’s Brooke.”

 

-x- 

 

Once a job is over, Vanessa doesn’t think about it anymore, but something about the desperation and loneliness in Brooke’s voice haunts her afterwards. She just sounded so… lost? Vanessa’s heart broke for her when Brooke had said she was sleeping in her office out of choice rather than necessity. 

 

At the end of the call, Brooke had asked Vanessa to stay on the line for a few more minutes so that she could fall asleep to the sound of her voice. Vanessa had found herself hugging her pillow and staring at the night sky through the window, hoping that wherever Brooke is, she finds happiness soon.

 

The way Brooke had spoken to her with such unbridled revelations of her innermost thoughts made it sound as though she has been searching for something, but she doesn’t quite know what it is yet.

 

It’s a feeling Vanessa knows all too well. 

 

-x-

 

She doesn’t doesn’t expect Brooke to call again. Only a small portion of first-timers become clients, especially when they sound as skittish and resistant as Brooke had done. People who tend to call her service use it as a last resort to fulfil some type of desires that they can’t talk to people in their real lives about, but last night they hadn’t even spoken about sex. 

 

So, when Vanessa wraps up a quick call with a man who has fetish for tattooing his female clients, she is surprised to say the least when she picks up the phone to hear Brooke’s voice again.

 

“Hi,” she says, blushing immediately. Last night, she’d spoken to Brooke in her regular voice instead of her breathy, drawn-out drawl that she uses for the job and she feels an unsettling sense of embarrassment that she’d answered the phone to Brooke using that tone. “I didn’t think I’d hear from you.”

 

“I didn’t know whether to call,” Brooke admits. 

 

“I’m glad you did,” Vanessa tells her in a way that seems far too familiar. “So, um,” she starts, unsure of where they go from here, “what’s new with you?”

 

Brooke laughs sharply. “Since last night? Not much.” She chuckles again. “Sorry to be a boring caller.”

 

Vanessa smiles and shakes her head even though she knows Brooke can’t see her. “Mami, you’re far from boring.’

 

-x-

 

Her and Brooke talk about everything and anything during her calls, except for sex. Vanessa is glad. It’s a welcomed change in pace to performing and faking orgasms to clients she’s only half listening to. At least the creep with the rope obsession doesn’t call her anymore. She suspects that he’s been transferred to another operator, but if she knew his name, she would warn other women off him too.

 

Brooke tends to call very late at night, from around twelve onwards, and they talk for anywhere between half an hour and an hour. Vanessa can usually squeeze in a couple of calls before Brooke, so for the first time since she started, she’s managing to earn a decent living. 

 

Out of all the clients she has that just call for the sake of having someone to listen, Brooke seems to be the one with the greatest need for it. Her sudden hesitations or silences between a flurry of conversation tell Vanessa that she’s taking a moment to get ahold of herself, or wondering if she’s said too much. But Vanessa doesn’t judge what Brooke has to say, she barely even comments on it, she simply listens. 

 

In the gaps between Brooke’s confessions, Vanessa will prattle on about any nonsense she can think of - her nails, her laundry, the shitty elevator in her building. Oddly, Brooke seems to like the prattling. It seems to relax her. 

 

Usually, on Vanessa’s end, things don’t get very personal, but Brooke attempts to get to know her nonetheless. 

 

“Do you have parents?” Brooke asks one evening, after she’s given Vanessa legal advice on how she can get out of her current tenancy agreement. “I mean, are they still alive?” she clarifies.

 

Vanessa, who was mid way through making herself a sandwich sets the knife down, slightly thrown off by the question. “My mom.”

 

“Just your mom?”

 

“Yeah. I never knew my dad.” Vanessa sits down at her small kitchen table, sandwich forgotten. 

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

For some people that’s a knee jerk response, but from Brooke, it feels sincere. Vanessa doesn’t like talking about herself on calls. She has an image that she paints that is very far from who she really is. It keeps her safe. But for some reason, she just can’t lie to Brooke. So instead of lying, she tries to keep answers about herself vague, or just avoid the questions completely. Things should never get too real. 

 

“How about yours? Still alive?”

 

“No,” she answers abruptly. From her tone, Vanessa understands that this part of the conversation is over. She waits for Brooke to speak again.

 

“How old are you?” Brooke asks after a few moments. 

 

“Early twenties. You?”

 

“Mid thirties.” 

 

Vanessa chuckles lightly at the way Brooke reflects the tone of her vague answer. 

 

“You’re a student, right?” 

 

Vanessa frowns. This conversation is drifting too far over to being focused on her. “I um-“ she pauses, “yeah, I’m a student,” she tells her reluctantly.

 

“Sorry,” Brooke says softly. 

 

Vanessa chuckles in an attempt to break the tension. “You’ve never told me what you look like.” It’s a statement rather than a question. 

 

“Um blonde? Blue eyes?” Brooke says as though she’s unsure of herself. “Sorry, I’ve never had to describe what I look like before,” she laughs uncomfortably. 

 

“How tall are you?”

 

“Five ten.” 

 

“Are you attractive?” 

 

There’s a small pause. “Yes.”

 

Vanessa laughs. In any other situation, she would assume that a stranger describing themselves as an attractive, tall, blue eyed blond would be lying. Shit, she’s portrayed herself using that very same description to some of her clients. But for some reason, she knows Brooke is telling the truth. 

 

She realises that she hasn’t replied when Brooke speaks again. “Do you think I’m lying?”

 

“No, baby. I know you wouldn’t lie to me.”

 

-x-

 

Vanessa quickly realises that clients with disturbing fantasies are a lot easier to deal with than a client with a heavy cross to bear. Too late does she realise that Brooke’s problems have become her own burden too. 

 

It’s subtle at first. Meals that she makes whilst on the phone to Brooke are forgotten and left half eaten because she’s so wrapped up in hearing about Brooke’s bad day. Or whilst she’s brushing her teeth, instead of looking in the mirror and thinking about how she needs to have her eyebrows shaped, she’ll find herself wondering what makes Brooke happy.

 

Then gradually, the heaviness in her heart that she feels when their phone calls end starts to weigh on her. One night, she finds herself crying into her pillow because Brooke told her she was staying in a hotel just to get out of the emptiness of her apartment, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

 

She realises that she’s in too deep when she cancels a night out with her friends so that she can stay in and wait for Brooke’s call. She makes some pathetic excuse to her friends about needing to save money, knowing full well that she’d made almost a thousand dollars from Brooke alone in the past month. Brooke is starting to become a priority. 

 

She wishes it would make sense - how this stranger has somehow reached into her heart and grabbed ahold with everything she’s got. 

 

It’s terrifying and crushing and exciting all at the same time. Her feelings for Brooke come as sudden as death, but she feels so very much alive. 

 

And she’s only a voice on the phone. 

 

-x-

 

Sex is something that Vanessa is good at. She knows how to react. She knows what her clients like to hear. She knows how to make them keep coming back for more. It’s comfortable. 

 

It’s safe. But most importantly, it isn’t real. 

 

So, that’s why she does it. Out of nowhere one evening, she tells Brooke that she’s been thinking about having sex with her. 

 

It isn’t a lie. Well, not entirely. She can definitely imagine herself having sex with a tall, hot, blonde. Plus she has always had a thing for older women. But it isn’t the reason she brings it up. 

 

When she’s talking about sex. Moaning and writhing and pretending to be fucked- she knows where she stands. She can check out mentally and let her instincts take over. But these long, emotionally draining conversations are starting to take their toll on Vanessa. 

 

She doesn’t want to stop talking to Brooke. Not just because the money is good, but because she genuinely looks forward to Brooke’s calls. But between school and Brooke and attempting to have a life of her own, she feels like a candle that’s burning at both ends. She thinks that fake sex with Brooke is just what she needs to break up her evenings. 

 

So, she tells Brooke she’s been thinking about fucking her. 

 

Brooke is hesitant at first, as Vanessa expects, but then suddenly it’s like the flood gates open for all of Brooke’s pent up sexual energy to come rushing out. 

 

Brooke’s fantasies are nothing too risqué in comparison to what some of Vanessa’s clients have said to her in the past, but the one thing Vanessa notices is that they’re always about what Brooke would do to her, not the other way around. 

 

In the fantasies, it’s always Vanessa getting eaten out on the balcony of Brooke’s apartment, or bent over the kitchen table, or pushed up against a wall. It’s always Vanessa’s body being worshiped, there’s never any mention of Brooke’s own pleasure. 

 

Usually, when her callers talk about what they’d do to her, Vanessa zones out. She listens just enough to know when to moan and scream, to perform as required. There’s nothing like that with Brooke. She moans Brooke’s name, but instead of drifting away in her own thoughts, she’ll listen to every word with fascination and curiosity. 

 

She never thought that pretending to fuck could be so much fun. 

 

Their phone conversations now run to at least an hour and a half, because of the sex. And even after she can hear Brooke panting from her orgasm and Vanessa has pretended to scream in pleasure, there’s still plenty they can talk about. 

 

Brooke has no trouble describing how she would toss Vanessa onto her desk and fuck her into next week, just as she as no trouble articulating her thoughts on climate change, or literature, or politics. More and more, Vanessa is beginning to admire her. 

 

Maybe it’s all in her head, but feels a connection to Brooke. 

 

Like somehow they’re two souls adrift, tethered together by the phone lines. 

 

She’s getting too attached. This isn’t supposed to happen. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the second chapter! This chapter was a little harder for me to write because I wanted to show the relationship from Vanessa’s point of view without re-using material from the last chapter, so I hope it didn’t seem to repetitive!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke grapples with the fact that Vanessa may not be the answer to all of her problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for depression, denial and poor coping mechanisms.

Brooke stares woodenly at Dr Ganache as she adjusts her glasses, types Brooke’s name into her computer system and pulls up the records from her last visit. She scans over the page quickly, then turns to Brooke with a frown and a soft sigh.

 

“I can see you only filled one half of your prescription.”

 

“Yes.”

 

She sighs again and shifts, somewhat uncomfortably, in her seat. “Is there any particular reason? I can prescribe you a different type of-“

 

“No,” Brooke interrupts to reiterate, “I didn’t fill the whole prescription. I’m not going to be filling the whole prescription. End of.”

 

“Okay, okay,” Dr Ganache tells her, holding her hands up lightly in defence. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t tell you that I think that’s unwise.”

 

Brooke rolls her eyes. She detests being spoken to like she’s a child.

 

“So,” Ganache continues, “let's talk about the half that you did fill. The sleeping pills, are they working well for you?”

 

Brooke pauses to think, because it truly is hard to say.

 

Three months ago, the day that she’d made the decision in the pharmacy to pick up her prescribed sleeping pills but not her antidepressants, also happens to coincide with the night that she’d spoken to Vanessa for the first time. Since then her nights have been… different. It isn’t that sleep comes easier necessarily, it just isn’t something she worries about as much anymore.

 

Maybe sleep does come easier, she just hasn’t noticed.

 

The twenty minutes of crushing exhaustion that threaten to consume her whole, between her waking up and forcing down her first cup of coffee - these days they seem a little more bearable.

 

“I’ve been sleeping better,” she eventually decides on.

 

“Good,” Ganache smiles. It’s a vacant, almost patronising smile. Brooke hates it. “That’s what we like to hear.”

 

-x-

 

She’d started seeing Doctor Ganache one year ago, following That Night. It had been one of the conditions for her returning to work.

 

Brooke doesn’t have a boss per se, since she’s one of the senior partners at the firm, but the board of investors had very politely, yet firmly suggested to her that making use of the firms excellent insurance policy and taking care of her ‘personal problems’ with the help of a medical professional, would be in her best interest. The suggestion had been a very thin veil to the threat of ‘if you make one more intern cry, we can't protect you anymore.’

 

So, she’d found Doctor Ganache.

 

She’d declined counselling and therapy. She’d declined drugs. She’d declined anger management classes and a trip to a wellness retreat and whatever other new age hippy bullshit was thrown her way.

 

She’d told the doctor that she would deal with this the way she deals with everything else in her life - alone.

 

Brooke cut her long platinum hair into a short bitchy bob, reigned in her use of profanity in the workplace and took up smoking again, to calm her nerves. It’s had been like using a band aid to hold together a fault line, but, fuck, it had worked. They’d let her start practicing again and the whole affair had been swept under the carpet, only to be addressed every three months during her designated check ups with Doctor Ganache.

 

At her last checkup, she’d finally caved. Practically begged for medication to help her sleep, because if she spent one more night laying awake and staring at the fraying corner of wallpaper in her bedroom she was sure that she would leap out of bed and take a chisel to it.

 

She’d pretended to listen as the doctor had drawled on about the side effects of sleeping medication. Headaches. Heartburn. Problems with attention or memory. High potential for dependence or addiction, especially in those considered to be predisposed to addiction in the first place. She’d nodded in all the right places and pretended to give it more than half a moments thought before reiterating that, yes, she wants the medication.

 

She hasn’t asked for a prescription for antidepressants because she wasn’t, and still isn't, depressed.

 

Sure, she feels like a shell of a person. Sure, she stares at herself in the mirror and sees that the spark in her eye that she’d always took for granted is gone and she’s terrified that it’s never coming back. She’s irritable and she lashes out and she says things that she doesn’t mean that she can’t un-say.

 

But she isn't depressed.

 

She just needs to sleep.

 

This time, however, when she’s in the queue to fill her prescription at the pharmacy and she sees the crumpled, three month old pamphlet - _Adjusting to Your Antidepressants_ \- she thinks twice about refusing to give them a try. So, she picks them up.

 

It’s not a commitment. It’s not an admission. It’s just another box of pills that are likely going to sit untouched in her bathroom cabinet.

 

-x-

 

Brooke can hear the sound of a tap running. Porcelain plates clinking on glass. A gentle thud as something is set down, followed by cursing as it shifts and collides with something else.

 

“Are you doing your dishes?” Brooke asks.

 

“Hmm?”

 

Another clink. Something is dunked into water.

 

“You know, you could at least pretend you’re listening to me,” she snaps.

 

“Sorry, Mami, I’m listening I swear, I just gotta do this before I go to bed or else-“ Vanessa starts to explain with a chuckle.

 

No, not Vanessa. It’s Vanjie. Her name is Vanjie and she isn’t real. She’s a voice on the phone who fakes orgasms and listens to confessions and definitely isn’t beautiful, but most importantly she isn’t real. She’s Vanjie. Brooke hasn’t known her name and said nothing for the past month, because that would be too personal. It would cross too many boundaries.

 

“No,” Brooke tells her firmly. “I’m paying you to listen to me, not to treat me like some fucking podcast in the background whilst you do your household chores. Understood?”

 

Irritable. Lashing out. Saying things that she doesn’t mean that she can’t take back.

 

Not depressed.

 

Vanjie pauses momentarily. “Sorry,” she mutters softly. “Sorry, you’re right.”

 

“I want to fuck you,” Brooke tells her. “Now.”

 

So she does.

 

She doesn’t, of course. But she tells Vanjie all the ways in which she would. She listens to the fake moans and the breathy pants that fall from her lips. Brooke doesn’t even get herself off to it. She just channels the raging fire of guilt and isolation and anger into fantasy after fantasy until she can’t do it any longer and she disconnects the call without saying goodbye.

 

Her spark is gone and it isn’t coming back, but she isn't depressed. This is just how she is now.

 

-x-

 

She shouldn’t have spoken to Vanessa like that.

 

Yes, she’s Vanessa again, now that Brooke has calmed down.

 

She’s a grad student who’s just trying to put herself through school by entertaining strangers on the phone for cash. She never signed up to deal with Brooke’s bullshit. Be her substitute therapist. Her coping mechanism. She’s not a saviour or a protector or a life raft to cling to, she’s a person.

 

It isn’t healthy for either of them. In fact, it’s dangerous.

 

For all she knows, Vanessa could disconnect their calls and completely disregard all thoughts of Brooke until the following evening when the sun goes down. But for some inexplicable reason, Brooke can feel that Vanessa cares. The softness in her voice when the conversation changes, or the way that she stays on the phone until Brooke is ready to go to sleep, even when she sounds exhausted. The little things tell Brooke that Vanessa cares.

 

But she shouldn’t care. This was supposed to be about pouring her heart out to an anonymous stranger, not tugging her right into the deep end of the pool and holding her head beneath the water.

 

The sensible thing to do would be to let Vanessa go, but the selfish way of doing it is to lie to herself, saying that she’s going to cut down on the personal elements of the calls, knowing full well that it’s a lie.

 

-x-

 

“How are you feeling?” Nina asks her tentatively from where she sits across from Brooke’s desk.

 

Nina, in her pastel pink blazer and dainty pearl necklace, doesn’t belong in this office. The office that is devoid of colour and personality. The office that’s all sharp edges and is uncomfortably expensive. The office that has the interns hovering outside the doorway, arguing between themselves over who should have to walk through the doors and face Hurricane Hytes first.

 

But Nina is here anyways, because its her job to be here. Someone has to keep tabs on her, and Nina is the only person who’s head she won’t bite off for trying.

 

They’d been in the same class at Harvard. Brooke hadn’t thought much of her at the time. Whilst Nina was consistently churning out average grades - essays brought down by what the examiners criticised as ‘overly political’ discourse - Brooke was always the top of the class. Their social circles had never really overlapped and so after graduation she was fairly certain they’d never speak again.

 

That was until Brooke had arrived for the first day of her internship at the most prestigious firm in the city and Nina had been right there with her, grinning from ear to ear.

 

To say that they’d drifted apart over the years would be a stretch, because they were never really that close in the first place. But they’d always been there for one another. Celebrated milestones in their careers together. Prepped cases. Chatted by the water cooler about office gossip. It was nice. Nina was probably the closest thing to a best friend that Brooke would ever have.

 

And then That Night had happened, nearly eighteen months ago now, and Brooke hasn’t been the same since. The affectionate way that Nina and Brooke had been referred to as a good-cop-bad-cop duo was a little too on the nose. People avoiding Brooke in the breakroom eventually became more than just a joke to scare the trainees. Nina stopped checking in as regularly, because there’s only so many times you can push someone away before they start to actually pull back.

 

She hasn’t answered Nina’s question.

 

“I’m feeling-“

 

Brooke cuts herself short. Because, fuck, even that is a lie. She isn't _feeling_ anything.

 

“I’m breathing,” she offers with a shrug.

 

Nina rubs the back of her neck with her hand and purses her lips briefly and Brooke feels an unshakable sense that she’s somehow let Nina down with her answer.

 

“Brooke,” she starts softly, but Brooke cuts her off with a brief wave of her hand.

 

“Ignore me, I’m being dramatic,” Brooke smiles in an effort to ease the tension. She’s ready for this conversation to be over now, so she’ll do what she always does and tell Nina what she wants to hear.

 

“I’m sleeping a lot better.” Exaggerated, but not a complete lie.

 

“I can finally go outside past dusk without having a panic attack.” Lie.

 

“I started seeing someone.”

 

Oh, no. Not good. A very big lie.

 

Nina’s face breaks into a childlike smile of excitement and suddenly Brooke is twenty five again, sharing a bottle of cheap whiskey in Nina’s apartment and giggling, whilst teasing Nina about how she’s really missing out by never having kissed a girl. Nina pretends not to grimace every time she swigs the whiskey from the bottle and Brooke tells her that if she was ever curious about kissing girls, she would be more than willing to show her the ropes. They make out for a couple of seconds and pull back in fits of laughter, wiping away the taste of the others lipstick, forgetting that they whole reason they were drinking in the first place was because Brooke had lost her first case and was devastated.

 

As soon as the memory comes, it drifts away. Like smoke trailing off the end of a cigarette, lost to the wind, when the damage to your lungs has already been done.

 

“What’s she like?” Nina grins, leaning forwards slightly.

 

Brooke tries to backtrack. She chuckles slightly and shakes her head, “not like that,” she smiles. “I meant I started seeing a therapist.”

 

Another lie. But it feels a little closer to the truth, even though it shouldn’t.

 

Vanessa isn’t her therapist. She’s called Vanjie and she isn't real.

 

“Oh,” Nina smiles warmly. “Well I guess that’s better.”

 

Brooke nods in agreement. And feels like an asshole for lying to her.

 

And when Nina is gone she locks herself in her private bathroom and turns on both taps to muffle the sound of her crying.

 

-x-

 

“I think I’m going to die when I’m sixty eight.”

 

Vanessa laughs as though its a joke. “Why so specific?”

 

“Because the only explanation for what’s happening to me right now is that I’m having a mid life crisis. So, that means that I must have hit the middle of my life,” Brooke tells Vanessa as she lazily sifts through one of the drawers in her bathroom. “Should I paint my nails cream or lilac?”

 

“Gross, neither. Red or black. Or something with glitter. You gotta silver one?

 

“Christ, I’m not a hooker,” Brooke laughs, shaking her head.

 

“And you ain’t a nun either.”

 

She settles on navy blue. The one with a sheen that sometimes glints in the light. She takes takes the bottle back to her bedroom and wedges the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she unscrews the cap.

 

“So, when do you think you’re going to die?” Brooke asks as she starts to paint the nails of her left hand.

 

“Bitch, imma live forever,” Vanessa says with such assurance that Brooke believes her.

 

They fall into a companionable silence for a few minutes as Brooke concentrates on keeping her hands steady whilst she paints. Ever since Brooke had snapped at Vanessa last month for being distracted on their calls, she’d stopped telling Brooke what she’s doing in the background. Whether she’s combing her hair or doing her schoolwork or ironing. Brooke hates not knowing, but she’d brought it on herself.

 

“So,” Vanessa breaks the silence as Brooke starts to blow on her nails, “this mid life crisis of yours, you wanna talk about it or you wanna fuck about it?”

 

Brooke thinks for a moment. “Fuck,” she decides, “but let me wait for my nails to dry first.”

 

-x-

 

Brooke isn’t sure what’s more offensive about the shelter, the smell or the sound. But then again, she supposes that keeping four dozen cats clean and quiet must be quite the task.

 

Her heels clack on the freshly mopped, yet still stained, linoleum as she follows the volunteer between the rows of cages and reads the tags.

 

_Hi, I’m Mittens and I am curious, playful and friendly._

 

Read: An over energetic pain in the ass.

 

_Hi, I’m Shadow and I would be well suited to a home with no other pets!_

 

Read: Very likely to scratch the shit out of anyone who gets within four feet.

 

Brooke sighs and internally asks herself why the fuck she’s doing this.

 

_Hi, I’m Apollo. I am very well behaved and need no access to the outdoors._

 

Interesting.

 

“What about this one?” Brooke asks, gesturing to the grey cat his cage.

 

The teenage volunteer hesitates slightly. “He’s a good choice, but he’s here with his brother, Henry,” she tells Brooke, gesturing to the back of the cage to a smaller, black cat.

 

Brooke sighs. One cat is fine, but two cats is when it becomes a thing. She’ll be a cat person. A lonely, bitter, cat person. But this is the only cat who’s bio hasn’t read as an ominous warning to their potential owner.“Do I have to take them both?”

 

“No, but-“

 

“Good. I’ll just take the one, then.”

 

Half an hour later, the papers are signed and she’s sitting in the back of an Uber with a cat carrier on her lap and a bag full of food, litter and toys at her side.

 

She’s definitely having a midlife crisis.

 

-x-

 

“You did what?” Vanessa asks though her laugher.

 

“Shut up,” Brooke grumbles.

 

“You bought a cat because a self-help book told you to?”

 

She wants to clarify that she adopted him, not bought, but she doesn’t suppose it matters. She likes the sound of Vanessa’s laughter too much to interrupt.

 

On some level, Brooke feels like a fool. A small part of her genuinely thought that bringing a cat home would cure her loneliness and at least somewhat tackle some of her intrusive, overwhelmingly negative thoughts. But now, she’s watching this poor, stupid cat, that she has no idea how to care for, sulk around her house because he’s been taken away from his brother and she thinks that maybe he would’ve been happier if she would have left him in the damn shelter.

 

Vanessa is laughing, but nothing about this is funny.

 

It’s not funny to finally have to face up to the idea that the cure to the way she’s been feeling isn’t going to come in the form of lying to her co-workers, adopting a cat, or spending hundreds of dollars a week to talk on the phone with a stranger. Recovery is going to take hard work and maybe the antidepressants that have been sitting in her medicine cabinet for three months and definitely some real therapy.

 

The realisation hits her like a bullet. But for the first time in a long time, she actually _wants_ to try. And maybe that’s a start.

 

She decides not to have fake-sex with Vanessa tonight, becaue when they dont have fake-sex it feels less like Vanessa is doing her job and more like she’s talking to a friend. Brooke tells her that she’s too tired, even though there’s no reason to lie, and tries to ignore the disappointed tone to Vanessa’s voice.

 

At the end of the night she gets in bed and her eyes drift to the unfairly subdued looking cat curled up on the floor in the corner.

 

“Are you lonely?’ she whispers. He doesn’t react.

 

And she doesn’t know what’s crazier: the fact that she’s talking to a cat and expecting him to react, or the fact that she’s going to go back to the shelter and adopt his brother first thing in the morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very Brooke-centric, as mental health is a main element of this fic and I didn’t want it to become sidelined to the romantic element. I hope that’s okay- the next chapter will be back on the branjie track!  
> Thank you for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa realises that no matter how hard she tries, keeping Brooke off her mind is not something she’s able to do.

Wednesday is Technical Construction of Outerwear.

 

Vanessa’s favourite class. 

 

She’s always had a fascination with outerwear. Most of the time, it’s the very first impression that can be made of a person. The faded denim jacket or full length duster or quirky poncho. It’s the outwards message that says  _ this is who I am and how I present myself.  _ You can tell a lot about a person by their outerwear. It’s something she likes to explore within her work. 

 

She loves this fucking class. 

 

So why is it that instead of listening to Ms Visage talk about the intricacies of stitching a lapel fold, she’s staring blankly into space, trying to unjumble the tangled web of thoughts in her mind?

 

She knows why, of course. It’s because she’s grappling with the fact that she’s almost definitely getting attached to one of her callers. Her tall, blonde, attractive, heartbreakingly lonely caller. 

 

Vanessa finds herself wondering how this had ever happened in the first place. She’d always felt empathy for Brooke’s situation, right from the beginning. Then around a month and a half in, when she realised that Brooke had started to become a permanent fixture in her nightly routine, she’d made the conscious decision to try to keep sex as the focus of their conversations. 

 

It hadn’t worked, since they’d just added sex to the end of their calls as opposed to replacing the emotionally draining elements, but it had always helped Vanessa remind herself why they started talking in the first place. 

 

Brooke is her client.

 

Vanessa is providing her with a service. 

 

Brooke certainly doesn’t need an over invested woman, nearly twelve years younger than her, to be getting involved where she doesn’t belong. What Brooke needs is someone to listen and someone to fuck. Nothing more. 

 

The sooner that Vanessa can get this into her own head, the better. 

 

-x- 

 

At the end of the class, they are gently reminded that they have four months left to prepare any work they would like to be displayed in the Fashion Institute of Technology’s annual ‘Ready to Wear’ showcase. Considering the hours upon hours that go into the construction of every garment, that isn’t much time at all. 

 

It’s funny. Brooke uses Vanessa to distract herself from her real life, and Vanessa uses her real life to distract herself from Brooke. Swings and roundabouts. 

 

Vanessa throws herself into her design work with everything that she’s got. Her apartment begins to look like an explosion in a fabric store. She can’t sit down without triple checking that she hasn’t left a stray tacking pin ready to poke her in the ass. The tape measure loosely draped around her neck becomes a semi-permanent feature. 

 

Between this and keeping up with Brooke, there isn’t time for much else. 

 

She doesn’t remember the last time she cooked herself a proper meal. Phone calls with Brooke will keep her up well into the night, then she gets up at dawn to keep on top of her school work. Her friends are starting to notice that she’s started to isolate herself too. But the worst part is that she hasn’t had sex in months. 

 

Vanessa quickly realises that there’s nothing more sexually frustrating than listening to callers act out their fantasies night after night and get nothing in return. 

 

She tried it, once. She tried to get some sort of sexual gratification of her own out of the calls, but frankly none of her callers excite her. They’re interesting to hear, sure, but there’s nothing that hits her where she needs it. 

 

There’s the guy that wants her to be a sexy professor and tell him he’s being punished for being late to her class. Ugh. Cliche. 

 

Then there’s the guy who seems to be more turned on by the idea of cheating on his wife than the act of sex itself. Gross. 

 

There’s also the guy with the foot thing, but Vanessa  _ really  _ switches off for that one. 

 

None of her callers paint any kind of fantasy that she’s interested in partaking in aside from the standard fake moans and panting. None of her callers, but one. 

 

The way Brooke talks about sex is something different entirely. It’s as though, with her, sex is art. It’s beauty and passion and more than just two needy strangers taking care of themselves. She talks about sex the way that Van Gogh paints. 

 

If, in the fantasy, they’re on the beach, Brooke will describe every last detail. The feeling of the sand beneath their feet. The taste of sea salt on their skin. The way that Vanessa’s orgasm would hit her like a wave crashing on the shore. 

 

That’s another thing Vanessa likes. With Brooke, she always talks in the future tense, as though she’s making a promise of what will be. 

 

Whilst Brooke is talking, Vanessa can’t do anything but listen. Enchanted by her soft purrs. 

 

-x-

 

It’s a nondescript Tuesday evening when Vanessa decides that she’s going to do something she’s never done before. 

 

She can't even blame impulsivity, because she thinks about it for hours beforehand. 

 

She thinks about how it’s going to feel to participate in Brooke’s fantasy. Slipping her hand beneath the waistband of her shorts and picturing Brooke’s fingers there instead of her own. She wonders if she’ll tell Brooke what she’s doing, or if she’ll keep it to herself, like a naughty little secret. 

 

She considers that it might be wrong in some way, to fuck herself to the sound of Brooke’s voice when she’s the one getting paid. But she tells herself that she’s pretending to do it anyways, so where’s the harm in giving it a try for real. 

 

What she doesn’t think about, what she refuses to think about, is how this is going to do nothing for her over attachment issues.

 

When the phone call starts, Vanessa can barely sit still. She walks back and forth along the length of her apartment, mere seconds away from telling Brooke  _ I’m sorry, I really do want to hear your complex thoughts on the morality of veganism, but I swear to shit if you don’t fuck me right now I will explode. _

 

She decides that she needs to do something to with her hands to distract herself, so she settles on cleaning up her kitchen. She sweeps the floor, wipes down the counter, then fills up the basin to wash a few dishes. 

 

“Are you doing your dishes?” Brooke asks accusingly. 

 

Vanessa barely catches what Brooke has said and feels very, very called out. 

 

“You know, you could at least pretend you’re listening to me.”

 

Vanessa’s mouth goes dry and she starts to fumble for an excuse about how she has to get them done but Brooke cuts her off with a harsh “no”.

 

And then she so graciously reminds Vanessa that she’s being paid to do her job, not fuck around doing her dishes or whatever else she wants to do. 

 

It makes Vanessa feel cheap. And disgusting. 

 

Somehow, with Brooke, she forgets that she’s working. It doesn’t feel like work. 

 

It feels like slipping into a hot bath, or taking a bite of her favourite food. It’s comfortable and warm and just what she needs. Yet in just a few short seconds, Brooke manages to bring that crashing down around her. 

 

This is her job. Brooke is her client. Nothing more. And that’s okay.

 

Brooke reels off some half hearted, needlessly aggressive sexual fantasy, devoid of all emotion. She depicts something rough and cold and vague. Then, midway through a sentence she disconnects the call and Vanessa is sure that she’s never going to call again. 

 

She calls back ten minutes later. 

 

She mumbles some half hearted apology, says goodnight, and ends the call again. It isn't enough.

 

-x- 

 

Vanessa’s face screws up in frustration as her friends double over in laughter. They’ve slotted themselves into Vanessa’s apartment amongst the various design supplies and bolts of fabric. If any of them wondered how she can afford to buy such expensive materials, none of them say anything. 

 

“Hold on, you do what?” A’keria laughs loudly, the wine sloshing over the side of her glass as she does.

 

“I ain’t saying it again,” Vanessa grumbles. 

 

They’d come over unannounced with four bottles of wine, declaring an intervention on Vanessa for being such a recluse. Vanessa keeps secrets like a sieve holds water, so before the first bottle is empty, she’s told them about her job as a phone sex operator. 

 

“I think anonymous phone sex is kinda hot,” Yvie smirks devilishly, running her tongue over her teeth. Scarlet glares at her and Vanessa pretends not to notice, since she isn't supposed to know that they’ve been sleeping together for the best part of a month. 

 

“It ain't hot, it’s work.”

 

A’keria raises a suspicious eyebrow. “There’s never been anyone that you’ve liked the sound of?”

 

She must hesitate for just a moment too long. 

 

A’keria, Yive and Scarlet all screech in unison, huddling closer and begging for details. She tells them, of course. She tells them about the enchanting, mysterious stranger who’s been occupying more than her fair share of Vanessa’s brain for over three months. She tells them that when Brooke was rude to her it had felt like a knife in the heart, and they aren’t surprised because Vanessa falls in love with a new person every other month. 

 

She tells them that it’s different this time. 

 

“If you’re so caught up on this woman and you know she lives in the city, why don’t you just ask to see her?” Yvie asks, as though it’s really that simple. 

 

There’s a million reasons not to. Brooke is her client. She could have been lying about herself this entire time. She could be dangerous. It would be crossing too many boundaries. But one reason stands out above the rest. 

 

“Brooke wouldn’t want that.”

 

-x- 

 

For a long time, it seems that Brooke is plummeting. The conversations get darker and longer and she tells Vanessa that she doesn’t feel a thing, but Vanessa doesn’t know what to say. 

 

There isn’t really anything she can say that would make a difference. So instead she just listens, working quietly in the background, because she doesn't want Brooke to think she’s getting anything less than her full attention. 

 

When they’d first spoken, Brooke hadn’t been in the best of mindsets, but it feels so much worse now. She’s stopped laughing. She’s stopped telling Vanessa about her assistants fuckups or that she’s just eaten six cookies for dinner. 

 

She’s existing, sure, but it seems like she’s stopped living. 

 

Vanessa shouldn’t let it affect her so badly, but it does. She longs for the old Brooke like a sailor longs for the earth. 

 

-x-

 

Vanessa realises she has feelings for Brooke when she adopts not one, but two cats. 

 

It hits her out of nowhere, like a speeding car in the night.

 

She doesn’t understand why she’s so happy for Brooke and her cats until she realises that it’s because for the first time in weeks, Brooke seems excited about something. Vanessa is excited too. She thinks that if this were a movie it would be the part when she turns it all around and starts to regain her life. She thinks that if Brooke starts to seem less emotionally vulnerable, she might have the courage to ask if she can see her in person.

 

She thinks everything is about to change. 

 

And after their call two nights later, when Brooke calls her, half way through a bottle of gin, sobbing over the realisation that two cats aren’t going to fix her problems, Vanessa cries too. 

 

Not that she would ever tell Brooke that. 

 

She cries as silently as she can. Tells Brooke her sniffles are from a cold. 

 

She cries because she realises that what she has for this woman isn’t just a crush or some stupid infatuation, it’s real, true, deep fucking feelings. 

 

And it’s late and Vanessa is drunk, but God, she might even love her. 

 

This woman who’s been a part of her life for nearly six months without ever intending to be. This woman who has a beautiful soul that’s hurting so badly that it hurts Vanessa’s too. This fucking woman. 

 

She really might love her. 

 

-x-

 

It’s way past midnight, but Vanessa asks A’keria to come around almost the instant that she’s finished on the phone with Brooke. A’keria has barely crossed the threshold and Vanessa is already crying again. 

 

It isn’t fair. This was never supposed to have happened. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to get so invested in Brooke. The situation has gotten away from her so fast that she’s doubtful she ever had it under control in the first place. 

 

Brooke used to tell her that she felt like a shell, devoid of all emotions. She’s so glad that Brooke doesn’t feel that way anymore, but just for one minute, Vanessa would love to know what it’s like to feel nothing. Because she feels every emotion, even the slightest changes, deeply and so personally. Happiness isn’t just happiness, it’s like light and fireworks and bliss. And sadness isn’t just sadness. It’s fucking despair. 

 

She was ensnared by Brooke the moment she opened her mouth and there’s nothing fair about it. 

 

It isn’t fair that she always believes in the fairytale that never comes true. 

 

“Oh baby, you were always too emotional to do this job,” Akeria tells her as she strokes her hair. It doesn’t make her feel better. It makes her feel like more of a fool. “You need to get out while you still can. Just toss that phone out and don't look back.”

 

Vanessa shakes her head. She’d never be able to walk away from Brooke without saying goodbye.

 

A’keria sighs and both are silent for a very long time, until she speaks again. “What is it about her?”

 

That’s a question Vanessa hasn’t asked herself before. 

 

Why Brooke?

 

Because, with Vanessa, she’s real. She doesn’t pretend to be someone she’s not. She struggles and she’s honest with Vanessa about it. She lied to her doctor and her friends and even herself, but with Vanessa, she never lies. Sure, she isn’t perfect, but she knows that she isn’t and she’s actually doing something about it which is more than can be said about most people.

 

Also, it may be just an act, but it seems like she might care too. Brooke asks her things she’s never been asked before, about her dreams and hopes and wishes and fears. When Vanessa had wanted to tell Brooke about her panties, Brooke had asked about her damn perfume. She’s so incredibly different from anything she ever expected from this job. 

 

She’s only a fucking voice on the phone and yet, still, Vanessa has fallen for her harder than she’s ever fallen before. Vanessa could spend hours listening to her talking and laughing and just living her life, because she’s so complex and intriguing that Vanessa is always left wanting more. 

 

It’s not about the money, she hasn’t wanted Brooke’s money for a long time. She just wants Brooke.

 

A’keria chuckles at Vanesssa’s silence, as if to say  _ I told you there was nothing special about her,  _ but she’s never been more wrong. 

 

“She’s nothing like anyone I have ever met before, and I haven’t even met her yet.”

 

-x- 

 

During the weeks in the run up to the Ready to Wear showcase, Vanessa throws herself into her work with everything that she’s got. She channels all her pent up frustration over Brooke into making sure that every last detail of every one of her garments is perfect. 

 

It will be her first chance to display her work to the world. Selling a piece doesn’t matter to her. What she wants is the recognition. She wants people to remember her name.

 

She tries to build up the social media awareness of the event. Sends personal invites to every designer in the city that she can think of, even though she’s sure that every other student in her class would’ve had the same idea. 

 

One evening her phone call with Brooke breaks three hours for the first time, without either having realised. She uses the extra cash to go out and print flyers for the showcase the very next day, then leaves them all over the city. In subway cars and on notice boards and in the back of cabs. The nice woman who runs the diner they visit occasionally takes a few handfuls for her counter, too. 

 

For once in the past six months, everything feels like it’s going to plan. 

 

-x- 

 

On the night of the showcase, Vanessa is a nervous wreck. She’s excited beyond belief and she knows that she’s worked harder on her garments than anyone else she knows, but it doesn’t stop that nagging feeling in her stomach that something is going to go horribly wrong. 

 

It doesn’t go horribly wrong, but it doesn't go right either. 

 

The mannequins look wonky and Vanessa has been given a space right in the back corner of the gallery where the lighting is terrible. She’s smiling and chatting to people, doing her best to make a good impression, but it isn’t enough. 

 

Yvie is there to help her out, since she doesn’t create ready-to-wear garments, instead opting for more of an artistic collectors vibe, and so has nothing to display. She nods at Vanessa reassuringly, and points out that her work is getting a good amount of attention, but it’s glaringly obvious that her work is not as popular as most. 

 

It’s crushing. 

 

Devastating. 

 

“I’m going to the bathroom,” she whispers to Yvie, leaving her in charge.

 

As Vanessa weaves her way through the crowds, in and out of the various displays, the feeling of inadequacy grows. Her mother always taught her never to compare herself to others, but it's so hard not to do when they’re right there in front of her, showcasing their flawlessly crafted work. When she sees one of her classmates making a sale, she wants to be happy with them but an intense rage overcomes her before she can help herself. 

 

In the bathroom, she slams the cubicle door behind her and starts to cry. 

 

She wants so badly to prove that she can do this. That she can be good at something that she loves. She’d been rejected once from the programme before they finally not only approved her application, but gave her a scholarship too. This was supposed to be her second chance to do something worthwhile and it’s turning to ashes in her mouth. 

 

She gets a few text messages from Yvie and ignores them all. Nothing she could say would make her feel better right now, she just wants to go home. 

 

She wants to talk to Brooke. 

 

Vanessa washes off the remainder of her makeup in the bathroom and leaves, ready to tell Yvie to pack up their things.

 

-x- 

 

“We’re leaving,” Vanessa mumbles the moment she’s in sight of Yvie. There’s a woman stood in front of one of her mannequins, but she’s probably just there out of politeness. Or nosiness. Vanessa doesn’t have time for this. 

 

“Excuse me ma’am, this display is closed n-“

 

The woman turns to face her. 

 

She’s tall. In her heels, she may even be a foot taller than Vanessa. Attractive, too. And Blonde. It sends a shiver down Vanessa’s spine that cuts her off mid sentence. 

 

“Oh,” the woman says softly. “I wanted to buy one of your coats.”

 

Yvie is stood behind the woman giving Vanessa a huge, dopey, ear to ear grin and holding up both thumbs, but Vanessa cant focus on that right now. Because there’s something about this woman that she can’t quite put her finger on. 

 

“Um. You wanna buy a- Um, yeah. Sure, I can do that. Which um, which one do you like?” She’s stammering and she doesn’t know why. 

 

“The most expensive one,” the woman tells her. 

 

Vanessa laughs. It’s loud and unladylike and she should be embarrassed but suddenly this woman is looking at her like she’s just hung the moon and stars. She’s smiling, but it’s so much more than just that. It’s like she’s realised something. 

 

No, it's like she’s found something. 

 

And there’s something about her that Vanessa can’t put her finger on. 

 

“With that attitude you should just take all three,” Vanessa teases. 

 

“Okay,”

 

“Okay, what?”

 

“Okay, I’ll take all three.” 

 

Vanessa shakes her head in disbelief. This has got to be a prank, but suddenly the woman is reaching into her purse and - fuck thats a lot of cash.

 

“I’m serious. I want to buy all three.”

 

“You’re crazy,” Vanessa laughs and shakes her head, which probably is not something you should say to a woman you’ve just met, but it doesn’t feel wrong. 

 

For some reason, she feels like she can trust this impulsive, gorgeous attractive, very rich stranger. She feels like they have a connection, somehow.

 

Vanessa laughs internally when she realises what that reason is. 

 

“Hold on a second,” she tells the woman, and for a moment her eyes go wide with fear, like she’s been caught out in a lie.

 

“Are we wearing the same perfume?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can only apologise for how long this chapter has taken to upload! I really hope the wait is worth it. I’ve second guessed myself with this fic a lot, so it would be great to know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke attends an art showcase and desperately tries to keep a level head.

Brooke thinks she might be getting better.

 

It’s barely noticeable at first.

 

Her chest starts to ache a little less when she’s brushing her teeth in the morning and thinking about how long it will be before she can crawl back into bed.

 

She goes out of her way to go to a different pet store just because they sell the brand of treats that the cats like better, and it puts a smile on her face to hear their purrs of content.

 

She smiles at the interns who gather by the water cooler instead of dismissing them with an icy glare.

 

Then, the bigger changes start to arrive. She asks Nina if she’d like to go out together on their lunch breaks instead of eating half a sandwich alone in her office, which quickly becomes a routine. She tells fewer and fewer lies to her doctor, until eventually the lies are non-existent and she’s actually getting the help that she needs.

 

It isn’t until Vanessa points it out that she realises she’s gone almost a month without spending a night in her office or a hotel. The realisation somehow feels like relief.

 

The heavy, draining feeling that’s been pulling her down is starting to relent. She’s still very far from healed, and some days it feels like her recovery is the equivalent of emptying a swimming pool with a teaspoon. But the water is getting less deep with each passing day.

 

-x-

 

One of the worst parts about recovering is that she’s able to see clearly how much of an asshole she’d been without realising. Rude. Bitchy. Cold. And that’s the polite version. On her bad days, she’d shown a blatant disregard for the feelings of anyone who’d tried to get close enough to help her.

 

Especially Vanessa.

 

The way she’d treated Vanessa on some of her worst days was disgusting. She winces internally as she recalls the time she’d yelled at Vanessa for doing her fucking dishes.

 

It’s unforgivable, but it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t apologise anyways.

 

“I’m sorry I’m such an asshole, Vanj,” Brooke tells her one evening.

 

It’s been a long time since that night, and their friendship is almost as it was before, but the guilt is preying heavily on her mind. She can hear Vanessa in the background of the call, trying her best to subtly use a sewing matching. It’s almost laughable, really, because the noise is about as subtle as a gunshot echoing in an empty chamber. But then Brooke remembers that Vanessa is coughing to cover up the sound of what she’s doing, because last time she’d been shouted at for it, and Brooke knows that there’s nothing funny about this at all.

 

“You mean like, in general? Or what?” Vanessa laughs.

 

Brooke chuckles slightly too. “No, I mean, to you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was an asshole to you.”

 

“Oh.” She pauses. “We all have bad days, don’t sweat it.”

 

Having a bad day isn’t an excuse for leaving it so long without apologising.

 

“Still, I’m sorry,” she tells her softly. “So, what are you using that sewing machine for?” Brooke asks, as though she isn’t fully aware that Vanessa is a fashion student.

 

“I um-“ Vanessa starts, but Brooke cuts her off, realising what an uncomfortable position she may have just put her in.

 

“Sorry, you don’t have to tell me. I know you don’t like talking about yourself. Just forget I asked.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Does she sound disappointed?

 

“Right, sure. Consider it forgotten.”

 

-x-

 

Brooke is wearing a bracelet.

 

It’s stupid, really, that she feels so proud of herself for wearing a bracelet. But she does.

 

Usually, when she gets dressed for work in the morning, she has a one track mind. She wants to make herself look cold and intimidating. So she wears crisp, stiff, expensive fabrics, sharp eyeliner and a harsh red lip. It lets people know exactly what to expect of her before she even opens her mouth.

 

Except this morning when she’d been getting dressed, she felt like a change. She can do nothing about the clothes she already owns, or the lack of variation in her available shades of lipstick, but she’d still felt an unshakable urge to add something different. So, she’d rummaged in the bottom of her closet and pulled out an old jewellery box given to her by her grandmother.

 

She hasn’t worn jewellery in over eighteen months. Nothing eye catching or expensive. Nothing that appears desirable to any passers by. Yet now, as she waits in line at Mama Cain’s Diner, she finds herself toying with the small golden heart, dangling from a thin chain on her wrist.

 

Realistically, she knows nobody will even notice, but Brooke knows. She knows it’s a step in the right direction. A break in her routine. She knows that it’s a change, and maybe that’s all that matters.

 

“Black coffee with an extra espresso shot and toast?”

 

Brooke is too distracted by fiddling with her bracelet to notice that she’s at the front of the line, so she’s startled when Shuga speaks.

 

“Hmm?”

 

Shuga smiles softly, then repeats the order. It’s the same thing that Brooke orders every day, but Shuga still likes to check.

 

“No,” Brooke blurts out, earning her a look of confusion. “I’d like um.” She didn’t think this through. “I’d like one of those caramel coffees. You know the ones with the cream on top?”

 

“Oh… you sure?”

 

“Yes, I’m sure. Oh and a pastry. Whichever one you recommend.”

 

In hindsight, it isn’t the best breakfast combination. The syrups in the coffee give Brooke a headache and she can only finish half of it, and the pastry is way too sweet to eat first thing in the morning. But it feels like the best meal she’s had in a long time. It was different. She broke her routine and tried something new and exciting and maybe there's hope for her after all.

 

When she’s getting ready to leave, there’s a spring in her step that wasn’t there before. She takes her plate and mug back to the counter to be tidied away, not because she has to, but because she wants to. Whilst she’s there, she also slips an extra ten dollars into the tips jar without anyone noticing.

 

She’s about to leave when Shuga calls her back over.

 

“Hey, I was gonna give you this earlier but it slipped my mind,” Shuga tells her, handing her some paper over the counter.

 

“Remember those students you asked about a few months back? Well one of them dropped off some flyers for some typa art show and I thought you might be into it.”

 

-x-

 

The flyer on Brooke’s desk is giving her a headache, and not just because of the gaudy use of what seems to be every different font and colour.

 

She should just throw it out. It’s not like she’s actually going to show up unannounced at Vanessa’s college showcase. It’s crazy. What would she even say to her?

 

_Hi! I’m the woman that you’ve been talking to on the phone every night for six months, and I’m sorry if this is inappropriate, but I really like you and I think about you all the time._

 

Even if she were to see Vanessa, how would she bring up her identity? Brooke supposes that she could pretend it's some sort of cosmic coincidence. She could claim to recognise Vanessa’s voice from the phone. There’s no way she’d be able to recreate her reaction to realising how truly beautiful she is for the first time, but she could give it a try.

 

But there are two problems with that idea. First of all, she’d have to lie about the fact that she’s known Vanessa’s name for all these months, which doesn’t seem right. Also there’s the possibility that Vanessa would find it extremely worrying and uncomfortable to meet one of her clients in real life and have them know so much about her, and that would ruin their friendship for good.

 

Brooke takes the flyer and crumples it up with one hand, then throws it in the trash.

 

It sits in her waste paper basket for no more than ten minutes before she retrieves it and smoothes out the creases so that she can double check the date and time.

 

-x-

 

When Brooke was a child, her family moved from Toronto to New York State because of her father’s job. She’d been the tall, lanky, awkward kid, with no friends and a funny accent. They’d bullied her relentlessly on the playground to the extent that after one semester, she’d had to change schools.

 

In her break between leaving one school and starting the next, Brooke had decided that she needed to change. She could do nothing about her height or the fact that she’d moved from far away, so instead she watched hours upon hours of American movies, practicing how to ditch her accent. She learnt how to ditch the distinctive Canadian rising and changed the way she pronounced her vowels.

 

It had been pointless, since her mom had caught her practicing the night before school started and gave her a long, heartwarming talk about embracing differences and being proud of where she’s from, which convinced her to stick to her regular voice. But she can still do the accent, if she tries.

 

-x-

 

Brooke is grateful that the event starts at six. It’s mid June, so the sun won’t begin to set for at least another couple of hours. That gives her plenty of time to get in, see Vanessa, and leave before it gets dark.

 

She may be on the road to recovery, but her fear of the night is one stone left unturned, as of yet.

 

Upon entering its apparent that each student gets three mannequins. Three chances to make a first impression, which Brooke supposes is better than one.

 

Most of the work doesn’t appeal to her in the slightest. It’s too disgustingly hipster, or derivative, or just plain ugly. She’s fooling herself by looking at the other collections, since she knows exactly why she’s here. She just wants to see Vanessa and leave. No talking. No interacting. Just a glimpse, to remind Brooke that Vanessa is every bit as real as she is gorgeous.

 

Admiring Vanessa from across the room is part of the plan, heading over there is not. Watching her fidget awkwardly and glance nervously at the other displays is not part of the plan. Nor is seeing her run off in a hurry, then using the opportunity whilst she’s gone to get a closer look at her work, which is beautiful, of course.

 

When Vanessa gets back, Brooke is supposed to leave, but instead she puts on her best fake American accent, distorting her voice just slightly beyond recognition, and tells Vanessa she wants to buy one of her coats.

 

Then, for some reason that is impossible to decipher, when Vanessa’s face lights up with pure joy at the idea of making a sale, Brooke tells her that she wants to buy all three.

 

It isn’t part of the plan, but when it comes to Vanessa, nothing ever is.

 

She’s not supposed to be head over heels for a beautiful, quirky, hilarious, adorable, adult phone line operator, and yet here she is, attempting to keep up her false accent whilst Vanessa leads her off to an empty classroom so that she can take Brooke’s measurements and make adjustments to the coats.

 

Falling for a voice on the phone is all well and good, but how is she supposed to cope when the voice has a face and the face looks like Vanessa’s?

 

-x-

 

Brooke is beyond grateful when she realises that Vanessa’s ability to keep up a steady stream of one sided conversation extends past just phone calls, because she feels too sick to speak.

 

She isn’t supposed to be doing this.

 

It’s tearing her apart that the longer she keeps this going, the further into the lie she falls. Down down down into the deep, murky straits of deception. She’s missed any opportunity she may have had to fake-recognise Vanessa. Really, she missed that chance when she started speaking in a false voice and deliberately hiding her identity.

 

The lie is causing a vile, sickly feeling in the pit of her stomach and all she wants to do is turn around and leave, but Vanessa is doing the slightly high pitched, quickened voice she does when she’s excited, and Brooke know she has to see this through.

 

As Vanessa shows Brooke into a classroom, switches on the lights and sets her notepad and the three coats down on a desk, Brooke thinks about how strikingly different Vanessa is in person. She’s always known that Vanessa is full of life, just from hearing her voice, but seeing it right in front of her does not even compare. She’s so animated and vibrant and full of energy. Brooke is truly enamoured.

 

Brooke slips off her own jacket and Vanessa sets to work taking her measurements, insisting that she wants to have the fit exactly right, so that they’re perfect before she hands them over. Brooke wants to tell her that, coming from her, garbage bag held together with a zip tie would be perfect. But it doesn’t seem appropriate.

 

Luckily, as soon as Vanessa is concentrating, she goes quiet. She’s focused and precise and has no time for small talk. Brooke is glad, since she’s worried that small talk would lead to her asking questions about Brooke’s personal life, and so she would have to lie in order to keep her identity concealed.

 

She doesn’t want to lie anymore. All she wants to do is be here, in this moment, with Vanessa. Feeling her cool, impossibly soft skin as she wraps the tape measure around her bicep. Catching the delicate scent of coconut as her curly hair bounces. No lies, no deception, just the two of them. Real, for the first time.

 

Brooke forgets herself, just for a moment. When Vanessa is taking the measurements for the collar and their faces are eye level, she wonders how fucked up it would be to just grab her and kiss her there and then. Pretty fucked up, she decides. So instead, she settles for looking into her eyes.

 

When she had described them as brown, she’d been lying. They’re rich and dark and decadent. They hold so much emotion that they should be clouded, but they’re perfectly clear. A window to her soul. Brooke swears that through her eyes, she can see every feeling that Vanessa has ever felt. Every laugh, every tear. Every time she’s been in love. Every time she’s had her heart broken.

 

Brown is an understatement.

 

“You’ve been crying,” Brooke says softly, accent momentarily forgotten. It’s a statement, not a question. She’d seen Vanessa leaving the gallery in a hurry. She’s attempted to wash away her makeup, but hasn’t managed to get it all. The whites of her eyes are still vaguely bloodshot. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that she’d been crying, but it doesn’t mean that Brooke should’ve pointed it out.

 

Vanessa drops the tape measure and lets it hang loosely around Brooke’s neck. She pulls away and a multitude of emotions cross over her face. Hurt. Anger. Annoyance. For a moment, she looks as though she might burst into tears again.

 

Brooke realises how strange that must’ve seemed to Vanessa. As far as she’s concerned, she’s known the woman standing in front of her for half an hour, not half a year.

 

“Fuck,” Bruck stammers, slipping back into her false tone once more. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude. God I’m such an idiot. Forget I said anything.”

 

Vanessa narrows her eyes and opens her mouth to speak, then closes it again and shakes her head. “Consider it forgotten.”

 

Vanessa is just about to reach for the tape measure draped around Brooke’s neck when she stops herself. “Why are you doing this?” she asks softly, eyes searching.

 

Brooke heart seems to both leap up into her throat and drop down into her stomach at the same time.

 

“Doing what?” she manages to get out.

 

Vanessa pauses, then sighs, then gestures around them. “This. Buying these coats? What’s so special about these coats that you gotta have all three? Is this some typa prank or something?”

 

Brooke laughs. She was utterly convinced for a moment there that Vanessa had figured her out. She’d thought the game was up.

 

Part of her wishes it was.

 

“Your work is beautiful,” Brooke tells her honestly. “It’s unique. I felt a connection with it as soon as I saw it and I knew that I wanted it to be mine. You make- um, the coats make me feel something that I haven’t felt in a long time.”

 

Vanessa blushes profusely and if she realises that Brooke wasn’t talking about the coats, she doesn't say anything.

 

By the time Vanessa is finished, they’ve been there for almost an hour. She tells Brooke that now that she has the measurements and knows the alterations that need to be made for each garment, it will take her a few weeks to complete the work before she can hand them over.

 

Brooke gives her all of the cash up front and Vanessa tries to thrust half of it back into her hand.

 

“I could be some typa hood rat that’s gonna take off with your cash without doing the work. This ain’t smart shopping, Mami. You don't know me.”

 

“No, maybe I don’t, but I trust you.”

 

Vanessa blushes again.

 

Luckily, Brooke manages to make it out to the street and call an Uber before the sun has set. Vanessa waits with her on the curb until it arrives. Brooke makes up some half baked excuse about how she’s about to get a new phone, so it's better that she gets Vanessa’s number than the other way around. She can't risk the potential for Vanessa recognising her mobile number.

 

The thought only reminds Brooke how fucked up this truly is.

 

As the Uber pulls away and she turns back to see Vanessa waving gently at her, Brooke is left with one thought only.

 

_Where the fuck do we go from here?_

 

-x-

 

It’s almost dark by the time Brooke gets home. She left it way too close for comfort. Her increased heart rate and sweaty palms tell her that much.

 

She doesn’t think she will call Vanessa tonight.

 

The guilt over spinning a lie so deep is eating her alive. She’s embarrassed and ashamed and furious with herself for letting it get so far out of hand.

 

Part of her thinks that now would be an ideal time to just cut all contact with Vanessa. Rip off the band aid and let the wound of her open heart breathe. She can't keep doing this indefinitely. The lies. Pretending she doesn't have feelings for her. Pretending that she doesn’t lay awake after their calls thinking about how phone sex could never be enough. It’s all too much.

 

Everything must end eventually, so why not give this one a head start?

 

But then Brooke thinks about her cats and her bracelet with the little heart and her way too sugary coffee. All the glimpses of light and hope. And she picks up the phone.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa answers after less than three rings.

 

“Hey,” Brooke starts, slightly taken aback by the lack of time it takes for her to answer. “Sorry, I know it’s a little earlier than usual. I can call back if-“

 

“Brooke.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“I need to ask you something.”

 

Brooke swears her heart stops. “Anything,” she tells her softly.

 

“I need you to- I want um- Tell me how you’d touch me,” she stammers. “Please.”

 

It’s not what Brooke was expecting, but she’s more than happy to oblige. She sounds so desperate and vulnerable that Brooke thinks she might actually want this for real. She knows that Vanessa’s reactions to her phone calls are fake, she’s never been under any allusion in that regard. But surely, she can’t fake the delicate rasp in her breath. The soft, caught whimper as Brooke tells her she’s going to take care of her.

 

She asks Vanessa to give her a moment, then toes off her shoes, tugs off her clothes and climbs into the centre of her king sized bed.

 

“I need to know,” Brooke says before she starts. “Is this real?”

 

The question is vague but the meaning is clear.

 

“Yes,” Vanessa says through a shaky breath. “I’m touching myself, Mami. For real this time.”

 

Fuck. This woman is going to be the death of her.

 

“God, I want you in my bed so badly,” Brooke confesses needily.

 

“Tell me what you’ll do to me. Please, Brooke.”

 

Fuck.

 

Brooke tells Vanessa that she’ll kiss every inch of her skin. She’s going to map out cities on her body with delicate caresses of her tongue. She tells her that she won’t even go near her pussy until she’s begging for it.

 

And, fuck, she begs for it. Brooke can hear her as she whimpers and writhes and begs for more, all whilst repeating Brooke’s name like a mantra. It’s nothing like how she’s ever sounded before, when she’s forcing artificial moans and cries. It’s real and its messy and she can barely string together two coherent words. It’s perfect.

 

“Brooke, I need more,” Vanessa begs.

 

So, she gives it to her. She tells her how she’ll lick her pussy. Soft and delicately at first. Her tongue barely even there. She’ll shower her with tiny kisses and nips until Vanessa is trembling from head to toe. And then just when Vanessa thinks she can’t take it anymore, she’ll give her what she needs. Hard and fast. She’ll suck her clit relentlessly, whilst fucking her with two fingers. Getting harder and faster and deeper.

 

“Brooke, I want-“

 

“I know baby, you want more.”

 

“No,” Vanessa whispers, “I want you to say my name.”

 

Brooke grits her teeth. “Vanjie,” She drawls. “Come for me, Vanjie.” The name tastes bitter in her mouth. She cant bare the reminder that this isn’t real.

 

“No, Brooke. Say my name.”

 

Brooke freezes. Time stands still. “I did,” she whispers.

 

“Say my name, Brooke,” Vanessa begs for a third time. “I know that you know it.”

 

Fuck it.

 

Brooke shoves her hand into her own underwear as she listens to her breathless pants. She’s barely managed a few furious strokes of her own clit before she brings herself to the edge that she was dancing so close to.

 

“Vanessa,” she moans loudly. “Fuck, Vanessa.”

 

They finish in unison, their names rolling off the others tongue like it’s second nature.

 

Brooke lays back on her pillow, chest heaving, eyes shut, mind screaming about what the fuck is supposed to happen now.

 

Vanessa is the first to break the silence.

 

“I need to see you. Tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know if you like the way the story is going? I’ve re-written this scene a few times attempting to get it right! 
> 
> As always, I’m on tumblr at youre-a-kite, so feel free to hit me up over there or check out my sketches.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa is no fool, but she is most definitely in denial about the identity of the woman standing across from her.

_For some reason, Vanessa feels like she can trust this impulsive, gorgeously attractive, very rich stranger. She feels like they have a connection, somehow._

 

_She laughs internally when she realises what that reason is._

 

_“Hold on,” she tells the woman, and for a moment, her eyes go wide with fear, like she’s been caught out in a lie._

 

_“Are we wearing the same perfume?”_

 

It seems as though the woman lets out a sigh of relief before answering. “Are we? I hadn’t noticed.”

 

Vanessa knows that they are, but decides not to push the matter any further, lest she seem like an over-interested creep to her very first customer.

 

She triple checks that the woman definitely, without a doubt, one hundred percent, wants to buy all three of the coats and the woman agrees every time. She’s so sure of herself. Like she’s never wanted anything more than to buy the designs of one nameless, reputation less grad student, amongst a sea of others.

 

Something about this woman doesn’t add up.

 

The cashmere, Burberry trench coat that she’s wearing is worth more than all three of Vanessa’s designs combined, then doubled. It doesn’t make sense that she’s somehow wandered in off the street, found her way to Vanessa’s display and decided to take every item. Yet here she is, blushing softly as Vanessa tells her that she’s going to have to take her to a classroom to get her measurements for the coats to be more accurately tailored.

 

Yvie gives her a less than subtle wink as they’re leaving, then tells her that since she’s no longer needed, she’s going to head over to Scarlet’s, and then Vanessa is alone with her.

 

The mysterious stranger with very large pockets and very blue eyes.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa can sense that the woman is nervous.

 

Her friends will occasionally refer to her empathy and uncanny ability to always pick up on a person’s mood as her sixth sense, but it definitely doesn’t take a sixth sense to work out that this woman is on edge.

 

She’s talking in very short, clipped sentences. They’re barely sentences at all, really. She just nods or makes soft noises of agreement as Vanessa chatters whilst they walk through the halls. She’s hoping that her stories about getting lost in these halls in freshman year are making the woman feel more at ease.

 

It doesn’t seem to be working. The woman is fidgeting and picking at her nail polish and pauses for just slightly too long as she’s figuring out what to say next. She has an aura about her, as though she’s just pulled off a heist and is waiting for the police to bust down her front door. Like she’s keeping a secret.

 

-x-

 

When they reach the classroom, the woman slips off her own coat and stands in front of Vanessa in her tight black pencil skirt and very well fitted, crisp white shirt. Now really isn’t the time to be checking her out, especially not when their height difference combined with the woman’s impossibly high heels puts Vanessa at almost eye level with her chest.

 

“Hey um, do you think you could take your shoes off?”

 

The woman blushes. “Of course. Sorry,” she says bashfully as she toes off the heels.

 

“I ain't gonna be able to reach to measure your shoulders with you standing there like a damn skyscraper.”

 

“Right,” the woman laughs, then apologises again.

 

“How tall are you?”

 

“Five ten.”

 

Vanessa’s breath catches, just for a moment. Because she realises what she’s seeing in this woman. The reason she’s so inexplicably attracted to her. The reason that she trusts her, even though she probably shouldn’t.

 

She’s seeing Brooke.

 

Vanessa knows it’s crazy, since this woman isn’t Brooke. There’s no chance that she could be. Brooke wouldn’t come to something like this. Plus her voice sounds different. And if she looks a little closer there would probably be a hundred other reasons why this woman couldn’t be her Brooke.

 

But still, Vanessa sees Brooke in this woman standing before her. She’s almost exactly what she imagines Brooke to look like. She smiles how she imagines Brooke to smile.

 

She isn’t Brooke - she can’t be - but she’s exactly who Vanessa wants Brooke to be.

 

-x-

 

As Vanessa works, the woman, who is definitely not Brooke, watches her so intently that it makes her fumble slightly. She drops her pencil a few times. Misreads the tape measure and has to start over. She pulls her fingertips away like they’ve been burned when they come into contact with the woman’s soft, warm skin.

 

Part of Vanessa is convinced that this woman is buying her coats out of pity. Maybe she'd overheard her crying in the bathroom and wanted to stop her from sounding so pathetic? Or maybe Yvie had paid her off to take all three coats so that she could go home sooner?

 

But neither of those things seem quite right.

 

Because right now, there’s no reason for this woman to be doing what she’s doing. This isn’t like making some sort of donation to charity with an oversized cheque just for the publicity photos. In this room, there’s nobody to hold her accountable. No reason for her to be doing this, other than the fact that she wants to.

 

There’s nobody but the two of them. Holding each other’s gaze for just a fraction of a second too long as Vanessa adjusts the tape measure around her collar.

 

The woman’s eyes are astonishingly beautiful. Vanessa has never had a thing for eyes, but hers are something else entirely. She’s holding something back, Vanessa knew that from the moment she saw her, but it seems like although she's trying to hide her feelings, she’s forgotten that her eyes can speak. Vanessa can see this woman is in pain. It’s speaking to her. Calling to her. She’s aching, badly. And yet somehow there’s a glimmer of hope. Just a small spark, begging to be ignited.

 

Vanessa is just on the verge of taking the woman’s hand and asking _who the fuck hurt you?_ But the woman speaks first.

 

“You’ve been crying.”

 

Oh.

 

_Oh._

 

It’s funny, how you can deny something that’s so blatantly standing right in front of you. How you can tell yourself that the woman looking you in the eyes - the beautiful, nervous, overly generous stranger who’s attempting to disguise her accent - she can’t be the woman you’ve been in love with without ever having met, even though she very clearly is.

 

It’s her. Maybe Vanessa didn’t want to accept it’s her, because she’s scared and confused and it doesn’t seem possible. But it’s her.

 

Brooke.

 

Standing across from her, staring into her eyes. Vanessa knows it in her heart.

 

Vanessa must pause for too long because Brooke slips back into her false accent and starts mumbling some apology about being rude.

 

“Consider it forgotten,” Vanessa tells her, attempting to replicate the tone she used when she’d said that same phrase in one of their phone calls. It works and Brooke’s expression falters slightly, convincing Vanessa of the truth more.

 

Vanessa can’t decide what to do next. Part of her wants to call Brooke out and ask her what the fuck she’s doing, coming here and pretending to be someone else, but another part of her wants to play along and see how far into this lie she’s willing to go.

 

And another part of her altogether wants to do neither of things and instead grab Brooke by her shirt collar and kiss her senseless.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Vanessa breathes out.

 

_Why are you here? Why are you pretending to be someone you’re not? Why wont you just drop this facade and take me home with you?_

 

Then Brooke asks “doing what?” And she looks so vulnerable and afraid of being caught that Vanessa decides she can’t do it. She can’t call her out. She can’t be responsible for that look on her face. If she wants to drag herself down into this mess then so be it.

 

So, Vanessa makes some joke about how Brooke could be pranking her by asking to buy her coats, and she plays along with the game.

 

She tries to ignore the fact that the woman who holds her heart is lying to her face.

 

-x-

 

It isn’t until Vanessa closes the door of her apartment after herself later that evening that she realises how she probably ought to be very, very afraid.

 

She has no idea how, but Brooke has managed to find out so much about her that she knew to come to the gallery tonight to see her. It dawns on Vanessa that Brooke must’ve seen her face before too, since her name wasn’t immediately visible on her display yet somehow she knew right where to look.

 

If this were any other client, she would call the police. She would call the agency and let them know to disconnect her number and curse her own foolishness for trusting something so risky.

 

But this isn’t just any other client. It’s Brooke.

 

Vanessa wants so badly to believe that this is all some big misunderstanding. She wants to believe that Brooke has no sinister motives for seeking her out under false pretenses. Because if not, then she’s done it again. She’s given her heart to the wrong person and let them crush it until it breaks.

 

She just wants to talk to Brooke and give her a chance to explain. She isn’t ready for this to be over.

 

So, she takes out her work mobile and waits for Brooke’s call.

 

-x-

 

When Brooke calls, she answers embarrassingly quickly, but she doesn’t care. There’s too much on her mind to be concerned about that. Brooke is rambling some apology for calling earlier than usual and in that moment, something comes over Vanessa. An impulse that she can’t control.

 

“I need to ask you something.”

 

“Anything.”

 

“I need you to- I want- Tell me how you’d touch me? Please.”

 

It comes out quickly, before she can change her mind.

 

It isn’t what she’s supposed to be asking. She’s supposed to be asking Brooke why she’d seen her tonight. Or how long she’s been lying or how she wants to move on from this. But instead the only thought on her mind is that if it were to all go wrong, she’d never have the chance to do this again.

 

“Oh,” Brooke sighs warmly. “Okay. I can do that, baby. I’m going to take care of you real nice.”

 

Vanessa sheds her clothes and climbs into bed as Brooke does the same, her body tingling with anticipation.

 

When Brooke asks her if this is real, if she wants this for her own sake and not because she’s being paid to want it, Vanessa tells her yes. But what she really wants to say is, _yes this is real and it should’ve been real this whole fucking time._

 

Brooke’s words are like bliss. They’re too much and not enough. It’s everything Vanessa wants to hear. Everything she wants to feel. For the first time, there isn’t an intricate scenario attached, where they’re on a beach or in an office or on a rooftop. This time, it's just the two of them. Just sex. All the rest is meaningless background. Forgotten to the sounds of their mutual, ragged breaths.

 

Vanessa knows what she wants. She’s desperately close to an orgasm, but there’s one thing she needs first.

 

“Say my name.”

 

Asked three times, until she hears what remains of Brooke’s willpower crumbles to pieces.

 

“Vanessa,” Brooke moans. Over and over again, like she owns the word. Like she owns her.

 

The seconds tick by like centuries as they attempt to steady their breathing.

 

“I need to see you. Tonight.”

 

Brooke doesn’t answer, not at first, but Vanessa can still hear her breaths.

 

“Vanessa, I-“ she cuts herself off.

 

Her name on Brooke’s lips sounds so natural.

 

“I really don’t think I can,” she whispers.

 

“What, you got time to come and see me when it's on your terms, but not when its on mine?”

 

“You know that's not the reason.”

 

Vanessa sighs. “Brooke, I know you’ve got your thing about not going out after dark, but I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t desperate. I’m hurt and a little afraid and very confused and I just need answers, okay?”

 

-x-

 

They decide to meet in Mama Cain’s Diner.

 

Vanessa can feel the anxiety radiating from Brooke the moment she walks through the doors. She’s wearing her coat buttoned right up to her chin and has her shoulders hunched slightly, curving in towards herself. She’s trying to make herself invisible. Vanessa doesn’t know what happened to Brooke, since it’s the one thing she won’t talk about, but it must’ve been bad for her to be walking with such raw, unbridled fear in her eyes.

 

Before Brooke had arrived, Vanessa picked a booth in the back of the diner, hoping that if they sit far away from the doors and directly beneath the bright lights, Brooke will somehow forget her fears.

 

“Hi,” Brooke says softly as she slides into the booth and their eyes meet, on the same page at last.

 

“Hi,” Vanessa says back, unable to prevent the smile that spreads across her face. She knows she’s supposed to be mad, or scared, or have questions. But Brooke is here and she’s real and she’s every bit as beautiful as Vanessa remembered from just hours earlier.

 

“Just so you know, I know self defence,” Vanessa smirks, only half joking.

 

“Me too,” Brooke grins. “So don’t try anything.”

 

And just like that, the tension is broken. Well, not entirely, but it's a start.

 

“How’d you find me?” Vanessa asks, blunt and straight to the point. She’s eager to get this portion of the conversation out of the way so that Brooke can wipe that kicked puppy look off her face.

 

“In here, actually,” Brooke begins.

 

It turns out, there’s a lot less to it than Vanessa expected. She blushes profusely when Brooke tells her that she’d first recognised her from her laugh. It causes a dull ache in her chest when Brooke says that she’d spent months trying to hide the fact that she knew her name because she felt so guilty about it.

 

Brooke tells Vanessa that she knows she fucked up at the gallery, and that she doesn't know why she did it, but that she will never stop regretting it. Vanessa knows that she should probably push for more of an assurance that Brooke is never going to overstep a boundary again, but right now, she doesn’t want to.

 

All she wants to do is order a giant milkshake with two straws and talk about how foolish they are for not having the courage to have initiated something like this months ago.

 

So, that’s what they do.

 

Vanessa picks the flavour - strawberry - and Brooke asks for extra sprinkles on top. The conversation is awkward in all the right ways. Unlike over the phone, long gaps in conversation are uncomfortable, but instead of letting it get to them, Vanessa will smirk, or nudge Brooke’s knee with hers beneath the table, or do anything to make her smile, because tonight she has discovered that she adores Brooke’s smile.

 

Vanessa doesn’t know whether or not she should acknowledge the fact that Brooke keeps glancing anxiously over her shoulder and through the windows out into the open street. She doesn’t want to make Brooke self conscious of a nervous habit, but she also hates the idea of Brooke being afraid of something. Eventually, she takes the plunge and reaches out across the table to take Brooke’s hand and gently grazes her knuckles with her thumb.

 

“Is this okay?” Vanessa asks her softly.

 

Brooke nods and squeezes her hand in response.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa dreads the time coming that they’re going to have to leave, because she could sit here and talk to Brooke until the sun comes up. Maybe that would be easier, so that Brooke wouldn’t have to go back outside in the dark. They could just stay here and be warm and safe and happy. But at five minutes to midnight, the waitress who served them comes to let them know that it’s closing time.

 

Vanessa clutches Brooke’s hand extra tightly when she sees her face fall.

 

Brooke fumbles with her phone to order an Uber, hands jittering as she does. They sit in their booth until the last possible moment, then when the waitress reminds them with one final exasperated sigh that it's time to leave, they are forced outside and into the cool night air.

 

The change in Brooke is evident immediately. Once more, as she had been when she arrived, she pulls her coat tightly around herself and huddles into the doorway of the now closed diner. Vanessa watches the minuscule beads of sweat forming at Brooke’s temples as she stares at her phone, waiting for the uber driver’s icon on the map get closer and closer.

 

“Are you okay?” Vanessa asks quietly, even though she knows the question is redundant, because she very clearly isn’t.

 

Brooke nods unconvincily, whilst taking deep, heavy breaths.

 

“Can I hold your hand or d’you want me to leave you alone?”

 

Vanessa has never been good in a crisis, so she decides that it's probably better to let Brooke tell her what she needs rather than try to guess. Silently, Brooke reaches out for Vanessa’s hand and gives her a gentle squeeze.

 

The Uber is so close, it should be here any minute, but Brooke’s breathing is getting faster and more strained and her entire body is shaking.

 

“I’m here,” Vanessa reassures her. “You’re safe. You know self defence, remember?” she teases.

 

Brooke laughs slightly, but after a moment her laughter turns into choked sobbing sounds and her eyes go wide with fear. She’s panicking, maybe even hyperventilating, but Vanessa doesn’t know what to do to help and it feels so wrong that she’s standing here doing nothing.

 

“Tell me what you need,” she pleads as Brooke cries. “I want to help you.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Brooke says between sobs. “I’m really sorry.”

 

Vanessa shushes her and tells her not to be sorry. She feels awful and guilty for forcing Brooke to come out at this time of night when she knows it’s distressing for her. She hadn’t realised the extent of her fear, she’d only been thinking about herself and how desperately she wanted to see Brooke. If anyone should be sorry, it should be her.

 

When the Uber arrives, Vanessa places her hand on Brooke’s lower back and gently guides her to the curb, then, when Brooke gets into the car, Vanessa makes the impulsive decision to get right in beside her.

 

-x-

 

Brooke’s apartment is like a doll's house.

 

Not a spooky old Victorian doll’s house, a pristine one. Where everything looks so unnaturally unused and perfect. The only signs that someone actually lives here are the cat toys in the middle of the luxurious looking rug in the living room. There are no photographs, no ugly sentimental ornaments, no takeout menus or junk mail on the coffee table. No clutter. Nothing personal is visible, in a way that reflects Brooke so terribly poetically. It tugs on Vanessa’s heart in a way she’s come to know all too well.

 

Vanessa had always known Brooke is rich, but never understood the extent of it until now. Maybe the fact that all the money sitting in her bank account is courtesy of Brooke’s frivolous spending habits and ability to drop hundreds of dollars a week on phone calls ought to have tipped her off sooner.

 

Brooke’s hands are still shaking as she sets her keys into the ornate glass dish by the door and kicks off her shoes. Her makeup is smudged down her face and her eyes are raw and bloodshot.

 

“Why don’t you go take a shower? I could make us some tea? Do you drink tea? Or I could make you some food? I ain’t too good the fancy stuff but I could-”

 

She tries to smile, but looks too exhausted to do so. “You don’t have to look after me.”

 

“Brooke, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.”

 

-x-

 

Vanessa unashamedly snoops around Brooke’s apartment whilst she’s in the shower. She figures that it’s only fair, considering how Brooke had managed to take a peek into Vanessa’s life too.

 

She starts in the kitchen, which is way to large for someone who lives alone. There’s nothing noteworthy in her cupboards, aside from the fact that she has four different flavours of syrups for coffee and a hell of a lot of sugary junk food. Brooke definitely has a sweet tooth. It should be illegal for someone who eats this trash to have such a slender, toned body.

 

Vanessa can’t help but let her mind wander to thoughts of kissing Brooke. How her mouth must taste so sweet.

 

If Vanessa kisses her tonight, she’ll taste like strawberries.

 

She looks in the fridge next, which is less exciting, containing almost untouched looking Chinese takeout and three bottles of wine in the door, amongst other various items.

 

It’s exciting, looking around Brooke’s kitchen and trying to picture her living here. Wondering if she’s ever used the whisk in her drawer of if it wasn’t bought as part of a set. Looking out of the window above the sink and imaging her standing here washing her dishes, looking out too.

 

As she wanders back into the living room, one of the cats emerges, which she knows from Brooke’s description on the phone is Henry. The cat circles her feet and brushes his face on her shins, so she crouches down to give him a little scratch behind the ear. He doesn’t stay for long, but he’s purring as he scampers away. Vanessa hopes that that means she has his approval.

 

-x-

 

By the time Brooke gets back from the shower, Vanessa has finished exploring and stands staring out of the large windows in the living room. She feels guilty for thinking it, given Brooke’s aversion to the night, but the city really does look beautiful beneath the stars.

 

When Brooke walks back into the room, Vanessa is taken aback by how different she looks. Her hair fall in soft damp waves beside her face which is clean of makeup. The oversized t-shirt she wears over a pair of plaid pyjama shorts makes her look smaller, even is she does have mile-long legs.

 

She crosses her arms over her body awkwardly and shifts her eyes, as though she’s trying to look anywhere but at Vanessa.

 

“I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t know what happened. I was fine and then-“

 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to explain.”

 

Silence hangs heavy in the air. The unspoken words passing between them like static electricity.

 

“Thank you for-“

 

“Do you want to-“

 

They both speak at the same time, then laugh uneasily.

 

“You go,” Vanessa tells her.

 

“I just wanted to say thank you.”

 

There’s no sense in telling Brooke that there’s nothing to thank her for, so she says nothing. Instead, Vanessa watches as she crosses the room to where her purse sits on the couch, takes her wallet and pulls out a one hundred dollar bill as though it’s a ten. She walks back to Vanessa then thrusts the money towards her awkwardly.

 

Vanessa laughs and shakes her head, stepping closer. “Y’know, that ain’t how this works no more. You don’t have to pay me for my time.”

 

“It’s not- that’s not what it’s for. I just want to make sure you have enough cash for a cab home. Please take it.”

 

Vanessa isn’t offended that Brooke is effectively suggesting she leaves, because she knows that isn’t what she wants. She’s trying to be polite and not presumptuous. She’s giving Vanessa a way out, but Vanessa doesn't want it. She’s done pretending that she doesn’t want this. She crosses the distance between them so that they’re less than a foot apart, slowly curls her fingers around the money in Brooke’s hand, then takes it and drops it to the floor beside them.

 

“Brooke,” she whispers softly. “I don’t need it.”

 

“Please-“

 

“I don’t need it, because I want to stay.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Brooke’s chest is rising and falling rapidly and her eyes are blown with lust. “Are you sure?” she asks, her fingertips coming up to ghost at Vanessa’s hips.

 

Vanessa stands on her tiptoes and presses a soft kiss at the corner of Brooke’s lips, bold, yet impossibly delicate. “I’m sure,” she whispers, repeating the kiss. “I’m so sure,” she tells her again, kissing her cheek and her jaw and her neck.

 

Brooke cups Vanessa’s face with both hands and pulls her back slightly to look into her eyes, then, when Vanessa gives her one final nod of approval, she leans down to cover Vanessa’s lips with a kiss.

 

Kissing Brooke is like lightning. In an instant, it consumes her. Vanessa parts her lips and the moment she does, Brooke’s tongue disappears inside her mouth as though she needs it to breathe. It feels so right to be held by Brooke’s long, strong arms that pull their bodies close together. Vanessa feels Brooke’s heart beating hard and she knows that everything she’s feeling - the lust, the longing, the relief and the joy and the hints of fear - it's all mutual.

 

She doesn’t know if they kiss for minutes or hours or decades, all she knows is that her lips feel bruised and she cant let go. Then Vanessa realises that Brooke’s mouth tastes like toothpaste, not strawberries, and it brings her back to reality. They pull back for breath and rest their foreheads together, fingers interlocked by their sides, grinning widely.

 

“Hi,” Brooke says quietly.

 

“Hi,”

 

“You’re real. You’re- you’re here.”

 

“I am. And you taste like mint.”

 

“What?”

 

“Doesn’t matter.”

 

Vanessa adjusts the angle to look Brooke in the eye.

 

“Brooke?”

 

“Vanessa?”

 

“Take me to bed.”

 

Brooke needs no further invitation. She bends down and clothes Vanessa behind her thighs, then picks her up off the ground in one swift movement. Vanessa curls her legs around Brooke’s waist and locks them behind her back, whilst trialing a line of hot wet kisses up the length of her neck, as she’s carried into Brooke’s bedroom.

 

They fall backwards into the bed, sheets still rumbled from where Brooke had been there herself earlier that night. Brooke lays on her back in the centre of the mattress and Vanessa moves to straddle her waist, then bends down to kiss her again. Their hands dance over one another bodies and the sum of all the small acts begins to ignite them. The kisses, the caress, the whispered words of desire and longing, it's all too much.

 

Vanessa’s eyes flutter shut as Brooke tells her how badly she’s wanted this, how often she’s dreamed of this, and how she never wants this moment to end. She focuses solely on the feeling of Brooke’s lips on her skin, as though her words may stop if she listens too hard.

 

Her fingertips flirt at the hem of Brooke’s vest, but as she starts to shift the fabric slowly up her abdomen, Brooke’s fingers lightly circle her wrist, stopping her from doing so.

 

“I um- I want to leave it on.”

 

Vanessa leans back, just enough so that she can look into her eyes, then brushes the stray hairs off her face.

 

“I want you, Brooke. All of you. Whatever it is that you’re hiding, I don’t care.”

 

She hesitates and furrows her brow, tugging her lower lip between her teeth, then breathes deeply and nods. Brooke twines her fingers with Vanessa’s and then raises up slightly so that they can remove her shirt together. She’s trembling as Vanessa tosses the fabric to the floor, so Vanessa showers her neck and collarbones with kisses, whispering endless reminders of how beautiful she is.

 

On the lower right side of Brooke’s abdomen, there’s a scar. Similar to that of an appendix removal, but thicker and rougher and deeper. It’s healed, but the tissue is still red and angry on her otherwise unblemished skin. It will fade but it will never disappear. “Oh, Brooke,” Vanessa sighs as her fingers trace delicately over the raised skin. She knows without a doubt that the mark beneath her fingertips is the source of all of her pain.

 

“Tell me how it happened.”

 

Brooke shakes her head and strokes Vanessa’s cheek. “Not tonight.”

 

“Okay, not tonight. That’s okay. Not tonight.”

 

It’s corny and predictable, but Vanessa kisses a path down Brooke’s chest then across her stomach. She pecks the skin around the scar with delicacy and care, praying that Brooke can understand what she’s trying to convey.

 

_I’m so sorry that this happened to you, but don’t think for one second that this makes you any less than perfect. Your body is beautiful. Your soul is beautiful. You are beautiful._

 

True to her word, once their clothes are discarded into a heap on the floor and they find themselves naked and entangled beneath the sheets, Brooke kisses every inch of Vanessa’s skin. It may be their first time together, but everything feels so familiar in the most perfect of ways. Vanessa feels at home in Brooke’s bed. She feels safe and secure with Brooke’s hands exploring her body, discovering for the first time exactly how to make her whimper with need. Everything they do comes so naturally, as though their bodies were made with the sole purpose of making the other scream.

 

Vanessa has to bite down on Brooke’s shoulder as she comes, to prevent a hurried ‘ _I love you’_ tumbling from her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is around 2k longer than my usual chapters - is it too long?? Let me know if its too long! Any constrictive criticism is welcome. 
> 
> Thank you so so much to everyone who left such lovey comments on the last chapter, it is truly the entire reason that I have the motivation to update so frequently. I love you all!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke agrees to meet Vanessa, despite the onslaught of panic that she knows is coming. It might not have been the best idea, but the consequences are very, very favourable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for vividly described panic attack

_Vanessa sighs. “Brooke, I know you’ve got your thing about not going out after dark, but I wouldn’t ask you if I wasn’t desperate. I’m hurt and a little afraid and very confused and I just need answers, okay?”_

 

Brooke shudders. Her heart is on the verge of pounding out of her chest. Vanessa’s breath comes harsh and heavy down the handset as she waits for Brooke’s response.

 

Eighteen months she’s managed to avoid any reason to be outside at night. Eighteen months of safety.

 

Eighteen months of being trapped. In her apartment or her office or a hotel. Trapped in her mind. Trapped in a memory of one night. One night where she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. One night that changed her, right to the core, and left longing for one chance to feel normal again, whatever normal may be.

 

“Brooke,” Vanessa whispers. “Please.”

 

She’s ready to be free.

 

“Okay,” she says quietly. “I want to see you too.”

 

-x-

 

Brooke dresses quickly, opting for plain, nondescript clothes. Nothing to draw attention to herself. She keeps her makeup light and pulls her hair back into a ponytail, then removes the bracelet from her wrist and with trembling fingers sets it back into its box.

 

_You can do this._

 

She repeats to herself over and over on a loop, praying that if she thinks it enough times that will make it true.

 

Her chest is heaving as the door to her apartment clicks shut behind her. She tries to practice the breathing techniques that they’d thought her in the hospital. Breathe in for a count of four. Hold for seven. Out for eight. Repeat. It’s just breathing, it shouldn’t be this difficult.

 

She waits in the brightly lit foyer of her building until her phone tells her that her uber has arrived. Counts down as she walks slowly towards the doors.

 

Five. Four.

 

This is foolish. She’s a grown woman. This _isn’t_ difficult.

 

Three. Two.

 

She draws in a sharp breath. She’s just leapt off a diving board and is plummeting towards her biggest fear. Bracing for impact.

 

One.

 

The night air is cold against her cheeks.

 

-x-

 

Brooke is the first to speak as she slides into the booth across from Vanessa. A soft _hi_ followed by a joke about self defence. It sets the tone for their evening and a weight is lifted from the shoulders. Vanessa could be mad at her, she could be afraid of her, but she’s choosing not to be.

 

She’s facing her fears head on and it’s giving Brooke the strength to face hers too.

 

The words don’t come easily at first, when she’s telling Vanessa about how she’d heard her laugh all those months go. She fumbles as she tells Vanessa that she had the chance to come clean about what she’d found out, right from the beginning, but she’d kept her knowledge to herself instead. She waits for the look of disappointment or disgust that never comes. Instead, Vanessa understands.

 

Well, understands may be the wrong word, because its not how she would’ve handled the situation. _I can’t keep a secret for two damn minutes, I woulda been falling over myself to tell you that same night._ But she empathises with Brooke. She knows the way Brooke thinks and why she’d kept her secret.

 

The gallery is a little harder to explain, and a little harder for Vanessa to understand. She has questions about why she’d gone to such lengths to hide her identity, that honestly, Brooke can’t answer. Her best guess comes tumbling from her lips in a confession. She was scared of getting rejected. She was scared of being face to face with Vanessa and not being enough for her. Or being too much. Too intense.

 

When her brain can't unscramble another way to say she’s sorry, she stares at Vanessa, vulnerable and waiting.

 

“Do you want me to leave?”

 

“No. Do you like milkshake?”

 

Forgiveness is a virtue but it can also be a danger. Like an open invitation for her heart to be broken by someone who thinks her forgiveness gives them a right to hurt her again. Over and over, because she’ll keep forgiving them. Brooke can see the hesitancy in her eyes and she knows Vanessa is thinking it too.

 

All she wants to do is lean across the table, cup Vanessa’s face in her hands and tell her _I am never going to hurt you._

 

-x-

 

The end of the night rolls around all too quickly. She’d managed to push the dark thoughts away, basking in the glow of Vanessa’s warm, comforting gaze. Focusing on the glimmer of excitement that never fails to leave her eyes as she speaks with animation. Choking internally when her tongue flicks out to catch the milkshake from her lips.

 

But as they’re stepping out of the glass doors of the diner and the gentle noises of the street pound in her ears, it becomes too hard to ignore. It’s too loud, yet too quiet. There are too many people that could want to hurt her, not enough people to save her if they did.

 

Vaguely, she can hear Vanessa asking if she is okay. She nods, but everything is too bright and too loud and she can’t think. Every nerve ending in her body is freezing and burning and drowning and combusting all at the same time. Gasping for breath. _She_ is gasping for breath. Crying, possibly. Shaking, definitely. She’s in the ocean and she can’t find her way back to land. Vanessa is a lighthouse, trying to beckon her away from the harsh jagged rocks and back to safety, but it isn't enough.

 

“Can I hold your hand or d’you want me to leave?”

 

Both. Neither. She just wants this to be over.

 

She reaches for Vanessa’s hand and gives her a gentle squeeze, but more for Vanessa’s sake than her own. This will get worse before it gets better and she needs to make sure Vanessa is going to be okay when it does.

 

Vanessa makes a joke about self defence, echoing Brooke’s earlier statement, and she tires to laugh but as soon as the noise bubbles up in her throat, the flood gates open.

 

She’s crying. Sucking in breaths deeper and faster. Breaths that don’t fill her lungs. They catch in her throat and turn to ashes in her mouth.

 

She can hear herself mumbling apologies to Vanessa, but the words sound unfamiliar on her lips. Like they’re coming from somewhere else.

 

“It’s okay. This won’t last forever. It will pass. You’re going to be okay.”

 

It sounds like a lie, but she clings like it’s the truth. This is going to pass. She just has to get through it first.

 

-x-

 

The shower stream cascades around her, water droplets bouncing back from the floor and splashing her shins. She’s crouched, head in her hands, trying to focus solely on breathing.

 

Counting helps. She counts the letters on the back of the shampoo bottle. The seconds that it takes for a bead of water to roll down the wall. The amount of times she’s going to have to apologise to Vanessa for breaking down in the middle of the street like a madwoman.

 

No, not a madwoman. Her therapist told her to stop using that word. She isn’t mad, she’s sick. She’s sick and she’s still healing. She knew that she wasn’t ready to face her trauma so bluntly, but she did it anyways. She wanted to prove to Vanessa that she’s getting better, but all she’d done was embarrassed herself.

 

It’s a wonder to her that Vanessa is still here. Maybe she will be gone by the time Brooke gets out of the shower. Brooke can’t imagine her wanting to stick around after tonight.

 

Reluctantly, she steps out of the shower and towels herself dry, then slips into her pyjamas, figuring that since Vanessa has already had to guide her by the arm up to her apartment and into the bathroom in the first place, there’s no sense in trying to feign an image of composure.

 

The tension leaves her body in a breath of relief when she sees Vanessa standing by the window in the living room. She’s taken off her shoes and her coat is draped over the back of the chair. Brooke is almost certain that means she wants to stay, but she can’t fend off the doubt. So, when she’s muttered an awkward thank you, she tries to give Vanessa cash for a cab home.

 

_“I don’t need it, because I want to stay.”_

 

Brooke doesn’t believe her when she says she’s sure she wants to stay. She still doesn’t believe her when she feels Vanessa’s warm breath on her cheek and her jaw and her neck. Kissing her. Reassuring her.

 

Even once they’ve kissed one another mercilessly, stealing every last ounce of the other’s breath, there’s still a sliver of doubt.

 

Until Vanessa whispers _take me to bed_ and everything falls into place.

 

-x-

 

The sound of, heavy, laboured breathing fills the room as they lay on their backs, side by side in the centre of the large bed, linked only by their pinky fingers in the middle.

 

“That was…” Vanessa pants.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Wow.”

 

Brooke feels a blush creep over her cheeks. “Yeah.”

 

It’s been a long night, draining both physically and emotionally. She should want to do nothing but sleep, but she isn’t ready for the night to end just yet. She glances over at Vanessa, whose eyes are closed, chest rising and falling with rapid breaths, waiting to see what she wants to do next.

 

After a few minutes, Vanessa rolls over and props herself up on her elbow. “If you want to, we could open up a bottle of wine and talk some more?”

 

Brooke has to get up for work in less than six hours, but staying up with Vanessa and talking the night away sounds infinitely better than sleep.

 

“I’d like that.”

 

Brooke finds her discarded pyjamas from the floor, then picks Vanessa a pair to borrow and tosses them towards the bed. They’re too big for her, the material seems to drown her petite body, but Brooke thinks the pyjamas have never looked better.

 

“So,” Brooke smirks as they’re leaving the bedroom and she flicks off the light behind them, “how do you know that there’s wine in my fridge?”

 

-x-

 

It’s frankly unfair that Vanessa looks so at home in her kitchen, when Brooke has lived here for half a decade and has never once felt as content as Vanessa looks at this moment. She steps back and watches as Vanessa takes a bottle of wine from the fridge, looks in all the drawers until she finds a corkscrew, then opens the cupboards to search for glasses.

 

“Do you only have one wine glass?” Vanessa laughs, standing on her tiptoes to see right to the back of the shelves.

 

Oh. She’s never realised how pathetic that must seem until now.

 

The smile falls from Brooke’s face. “One broke,” she explains, pulling out a stool from the breakfast bar and sitting down slowly.

 

“That’s alright, I can drink outta something different. Or we can share. Ain’t like you haven’t already got my mouth germs all up inside ya.” Vanessa teases, unaware of Brooke’s inner turmoil.

 

“Two Christmases ago.”

 

“What?”

 

“I broke the glass eighteen months ago, right before Christmas, and I’ve never had a reason to replace it. I haven’t needed more than one.”

 

She’d broken the glass in a rage after being sent home from work by patronising colleagues insisting that she needs to take more time to recover. Her hands had been shaking as she attempted to pour herself a drink, then the wine spilled and she hurled the glass at the wall with a cry. Followed by the bottle.

 

And since then, she’s only needed one glass. Nobody has been in her apartment, other than her and the cleaner she hires once a month. She’s had no friends over. No dates that she’s asked home for a nightcap. No family has visited. Not one single person in eighteen months.

 

She doesn’t realise that she’s crying until she feels Vanessa’s tumb brush beneath her eye. “It’s okay.” she reassures. Brooke shuts her eyes and leans into Vanessa’s touch, then feels a gentle kiss on her lips, which she returns just as softly.

 

“Look.” Vanessa nudges her side so that she will open her eyes. When she opens them, Vanessa picks up the single glass and crosses the room to drop it into the trash. Brooke winces as it shatters on impact, but Vanessa grins. “Now we need to buy two.”

 

-x-

 

They work through the bottle of wine, sitting cross legged on the couch and drinking from mugs. Vanessa starts a game of asking one another questions, and pouts playfully when she thinks Brooke’s questions aren’t interesting enough.

 

“Are you more scared of snakes or spiders?”

 

“Neither. What was the name of the street you grew up on?”

 

“Brooke I ain’t answering that, you sound like you’re asking my security question at the bank.”

 

“What do you want me to ask you?”

 

“Something you really want to know.”

 

_How do you light up a room without trying? Why were you so ready to give me a second chance? What’s going to happen in the morning?_

 

_Do you believe in soulmates?_

 

“Do you prefer Thanksgiving or Halloween?”

 

By three in the morning, Vanessa is unable to stifle her yawns any longer. They curl up in Brooke’s bed together, limbs tangled, Vanessa’s head on Brooke’s chest, Brooke drawing patterns on Vanessa’s back with her fingertips.

 

Brooke doesn’t have to awkwardly ask if it’s okay if they sleep with the lamp on, because Vanessa never suggests turning it off. She understands.

 

-x-

 

“Call in sick today?” Vanessa purrs, kissing the spot beneath Brooke’s ear that tickles in just the right way.

 

“I can’t, baby,” Brooke chuckles for the third time this morning, as she traces shapes on Vanessa’s bare thighs.

 

Brooke lays on her back with Vanessa in her lap, legs straddled either side of her hips. It’s just before six and the sun is streaming through the window behind her, washing her in an angelic glow. Brooke could lay here with her, flitting between giggles and soft touches and slow makeouts, all day.

 

But duty calls and despite the fact she hates her job, she can’t in good conscience call in sick just so that she can fuck Vanessa for the rest of the morning.

 

Vanessa wiggles her hips and tugs Brooke’s earlobe between her teeth. “Well in that case, we’d better go take a shower. Can’t have you being late now can we?”

 

-x-

 

When Brooke showers in the morning, she’s efficient. Washes her body, her hair too if it needs it, stares at the water running down the drain and wishes she could go with it, then gets out.

 

With Vanessa, showering takes much, much longer.

 

Vanessa leans back against the cold marble tiles, eyes closed, as Brooke’s lips grace over her wet skin. She kisses her neck and her collarbones and her shoulders. Worshipping her body like it’s something sacred. Brooke’s kisses drift down to Vanessa’s breasts, taking each nipple into her mouth in turn. As she does, Vanessa lets out a soft moan and turns her face up into the shower stream.

 

Brooke watches hundreds of steaming hot beads of water as they fall on Vanessa’s face. Dripping from her eyelashes and the end of her nose. Trailing further and further down her body.

 

She drops to her knees to chase them.

 

Mere minutes pass before Vanessa moves her hands down, searching for Brooke’s hands on her hips, catching them, intertwining their fingers, squeezing, moaning, coming. Brooke stays on her knees, looking up at her with a small, self satisfied smile on her face. Vanessa’s hair hangs dark and heavy and her skin is almost sparkling, glistening with water.

 

Brooke knows her face must be glowing, because she can’t remember ever seeing something so beautiful in her entire life.

 

As Vanessa rides out her post orgasmic haze, Brooke stands, takes the shampoo bottle and squeezes a generous amount into her hand. She lathers up the gel, then tangles her hands in Vanessa’s hair, combing the strands between her fingers. Vanessa shudders when Brooke drags her fingernails over her scalp, so she bends down to peck Vanessa’s shoulder, then repeats the action with more pressure.

 

“You’re spoiling me,” Vanessa purrs.

 

“And you love it.”

 

She giggles in response. Brooke doesn’t see it as spoiling whatsoever, she’s simply allowing Vanessa to indulge in the feeling of being adored.

 

Once the last suds from Vanessa’s hair have been rinsed away, Vanessa picks up the soap and Brooke watches in silence as Vanessa reaches for her. She lets the tension evaporate from her aching muscles as she feels Vanessa’s impossibly soft hands rubbing soap over her curves, then swats her playfully when she feels Vanessa’s wandering hand squeeze her on the ass.

 

When her hands roam back around to Brooke’s front, Brooke sucks in a sharp breath and holds it tightly. Her fingertips hover over the scar, as though she’s afraid to touch it.

 

“You won’t hurt me. It isn’t painful anymore.”

 

Vanessa brushes the pad of her thumb over the rough skin, then repeats the gesture, over and over again. As though with soft touches and whispered apologies against her lips, she will make it disappear.

 

-x-

When they finally emerge from the shower, Brooke has to rush to get ready for work. Vanessa says that she’s going to keep out of the way, but there’s nothing more distracting than the best sex she’s every had wrapped up in a towel, splayed out on the bed. As Brooke pulls on her tight black pencil skirt, it takes every ounce of her strength not to climb right back into bed with her.

 

When she’s fastening her delicate gold bracelet around her wrist, she decides to pick out a pair of earrings too.

 

She’s making progress. It makes her feel warm.

 

At some point between Brooke applying her makeup and straightening her hair, Vanessa falls asleep. Right in the centre of the bed, hair fanned around her like a halo. It’s no surprise, considering they slept so little last night. As she sleeps, she looks so beautifully undisturbed that Brooke can’t bring herself to wake her. Instead, she leaves Vanessa with a note on the bedside table and a kiss on the temple.

 

_Let yourself out when you’re ready, the door will lock behind you. Stay as long as you’d like. Maybe whilst I’m gone you can finish looking through my things? xoxo_

 

-x-

 

Throughout the day, Brooke can’t keep the _I just got laid by the most gorgeous woman alive_ smile off of her face. She knows that people are noticing it. The security guard at reception tips his hat to her in an all too knowing way. As she walks past a group of junior lawyers, she hears a mumbled “what’s gotten into her?”, when they think she’s out of earshot. Nina practically squeals with excitement when she arrives for lunch, casually asks if Brooke had a good evening and receives an embarrassed blush in response.

 

Brooke promises that she’ll eventually tell her about the mystery woman that has etched a permanent smile on her face, but for now, she wants to keep Vanessa all to herself. Like a perfect hidden treasure.

 

-x-

 

When Brooke gets home from work, she half expects Vanessa to still be in her bed. Blankets draped lazily over her waist, hair still damp from the shower. She’s disappointed when she isn’t

 

Instead, the bed is made, the pyjamas she’d given her are folded, and there’s a note resting on the top.

 

_You got some fancy shit, thanks for letting me snoop around! Call me when you’re home. I’ll be waiting - V x_

 

The phone barely begins its third ring when Vanessa picks up.

 

“Hi,” Vanessa says. God, Brooke didn’t know it was possible to _hear_ person smile, but it is. She can picture so vividly. The way her lips curl softly at the corners. Her dazzling teeth. The crinkles at the edges of her eyes.

 

Before, just her voice on the phone had been everything. Now, it will never be enough again. She needs to see her. To tuck her hair behind her ear and caress her skin. To see the small bumps that form on her arms with a tingle, as they breathe heavily against the other’s lips. All of the things that can never come from the mobile in her hand.

 

“So, did you have a good day at wo-“

 

“I need to see you,” Brooke cuts her off needily. “Come back.”

 

She agrees without hesitation.

 

Brooke asks for Vanessa’s address so that she can call her an Uber and have it charged to her account, and within half an hour of the call, Brooke has Vanessa slammed up against the inside of her front door with her hand beneath her skirt.

 

Vanessa whimpers against Brooke’s lips between fierce kisses, begging for more.

 

“Tell me what you want, baby,” Brooke whispers into her ear, as though Vanessa’s heels digging into her back aren’t enough of an indication.

 

“Stop teasing,” she begs.

 

Brooke smirks, using two fingers to rub her gently over her panties and grazing her thumb over her clit. “You want more?” she guesses, pushing her thumb down harder.

 

Vanessa wiggles her hips, trying to increase the friction, but Brooke eases the pressure as she does. “Did you think about this whilst I was at work?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She thumbs Vanessa’s clit once more, rotating in soft circles. “You thought about me fucking you?”

 

She gasps. “Yes. Yes,” she stammers.

 

“Did you touch yourself?”

 

No response.

 

“Did you touch yourself in my bed, thinking about all the ways you want me to fuck you there?”

 

She nods into Brooke’s shoulder. Tightening her grip as Brooke’s fingers work faster and faster against her.

 

“Good girl,” Brooke grins.

 

-x-

 

On Saturday morning Brooke has half a mind to suggest they stay in bed all day, watching the world go by through the window. But Vanessa possesses far too many qualities akin to a firecracker to be cooped up inside all day. So, like the ‘whitest romcom couple in the city’ (according to Vanessa) they go for their first official date in Central Park.

 

Brooke watches in awe as Vanessa flits through the cherry blossom trees, delicate and graceful, like she’s one of the fallen petals, then drags her by the hand to the boat rental cabin on the lake. Vanessa’s cheeks flush pink from the sun as she relaxes back and basks in the glow, whilst Brooke does the rowing, but Brooke doesn’t care. She loves the way her muscles strain and the sweat gathers at her temples. Women like Vanessa deserve to be worked hard for.

 

When Vanessa sees the turtles in the lake, she yells with excitement as she watches their heads bob to the surface of the water. Other couples and families are being less than subtle with their glances towards the source of the noise. Let them, Brooke thinks. Let them marvel in her beauty and wish they could be the ones sitting across from her.

 

As they sit on a bench beneath the shade of a large oak, sharing an ice cream with two tiny plastic spoons, Vanessa reels off a list of all the other things they could do together. Breakfast in the best pancake house in the city. Dip their toes in the water at Rockaway Beach. She’s never been to the top of the Statue of Liberty. And there’s a pop up fashion exhibit in The Met that she wants to see too. The list goes on.

 

But there’s one thing that every single suggestion has in common. Not a single one of her date ideas take place at night. She’s going out of her way to think of daytime activities. She’s trying to be subtle, but when she suggests cocktails at a new bar downtown and quickly clarifies that they could go in the afternoon, Brooke gets the message loud and clear.

 

She cares. She understands Brooke’s anxieties and takes them in her stride without question. Brooke has never had anyone care about her like this before.

 

For the first time in her life, Brooke Lynn Hytes is falling in love.

 

It’s way too soon to tell her. For Vanessa, this is all fresh and new, whereas Brooke has been burning this candle for a very long time. Falling harder after each phone call. Each late night. Each time they say goodbye and she holds back the urge to ask for five more minutes.

 

She’ll tell her eventually, but right now, Brooke wants to revel in the feeling of _feeling_ again.

 

-x-

 

Laying in Vanessa’s bed, making out and grinding against one another whilst fully clothed, Brooke feels like a horny teenager. She never knew that the tight strain of jeans against her skin could feel so good.

 

Their relationship is unlike anything that Brooke has ever experienced before. They’ve known each other for over seven months. They’ve told each other their hopes and dreams and raunchiest sexual fantasies. Brooke thinks it’s possible Vanessa knows more about her than anyone else has done in a very long time. Yet at the same time, they’re getting to experience the beginnings of a new romance. The fumbling and the excitement. Kissing just for kissings sake. Exploring one another’s curves. Their souls may be entwined but their bodies are strangers. Brooke is very much enjoying every second of getting to know Vanessa’s.

 

Brooke wants Vanessa, and from the feel of her wandering hands and the way her chest is heaving with desire, Vanessa is ready for her too, but Brooke wants to take her time. For the past three weeks, they’ve barely made past the threshold of either of their apartments before they’re half dressed and moaning the other’s name. They couldn’t keep their hands off each other, even if they were to try. Now however, Brooke is content with exploring Vanessa with leisure as they wait for their takeout to arrive.

 

Brooke presses Vanessa down into the mattress and Vanessa is quick to hook her leg around Brooke’s back, pulling her closer. Brooke smirks and pulls her lips away from Vanessa’s, only to drop them down onto the hollow at her throat. The place she knows that, when kissed, makes Vanessa shudder with arousal.

 

“Brooke,” Vanessa wines, grinding up unashamedly into her thigh.

 

“Slowly,” Brooke whispers.

 

Her kisses move to the top hem of Vanessa’s tank top, which she nudges down with her nose, biting playfully at the newly exposed skin.

 

“Brooke,” she wines again, when the kisses reach her breasts. Brooke blows gently on her left nipple, watching as it forms a hard peak, and is on the verge of dragging her teeth over the same spot - then the doorbell rings.

 

Vanessa’s head falls back onto the pillow and she groans loudly.

 

“To be continued,” Brooke smirks.

 

When she rolls onto her side to let Vanessa get out from beneath her, she looks down to see that her blouse was unbuttoned at some point during their makeout, then looks back up to see Vanessa’s shit eating grin.

 

“You sneaky little shit,” she chuckles playfully.

 

She tells Vanessa to take money from her purse to pay for their food, then swats her on the ass playfully as she leaves the room. Once Vanessa has left, Brooke looks at herself in the mirror and grins at how she somehow looks thoroughly fucked, without having been fucked at all. Then, she leaves the room to follow Vanessa, buttoning up her shirt as she does.

 

Brooke is very surprised when she walks into the hall that instead Vanessa standing there with her hands full of Thai takeout, there are three women standing in the doorway, craning their necks trying to see past her and into the apartment.

 

The tallest one’s face lights up with recognition immediately, then she turns to Vanessa with a sly grin.

 

“Banging the rich chick from the gallery? Nice,” she nods in approval.

 

Brooke can feel her face flush with embarrassment as she scrambles to pull the top half of her shirt closed, muttering profanities.

 

“Fuck, I’m sorry baby. Go back to my room. These assholes were just leaving,” Vanessa urges, swatting the three women away.

 

“No we weren’t,” the tall one grins again, pushing past Vanessa and into the hall. The other two girls follow her, and Vanessa flashes Brooke an apologetic shrug.

 

“I’m Yvie. This is Scarlet and A’keria,” Yvie says, blatantly looking Brooke up and down with a curious gaze. “And you are?”

 

Brooke doesn’t see Vanessa wince in anticipation before she answers.

 

“I’m Brooke,” she smiles awkwardly, wanting nothing more than for the ground to swallow her whole. Of all the ways she could’ve met Vanessa’s friends for the first time, running into them in the hall with four buttons on her shirt undone and lipstick stains on her neck is less than ideal.

 

But she doesn’t have time to dwell on the awkwardness of her smile because all three sets of eyes staring at her go wide with shock.

 

“Don’t,” Vanessa warns sternly, before any of them have the chance to speak.

 

“ _Brooke_ , Brooke?” A’keria smirks knowingly.

 

Vanessa groans and covers her face with her hands.

 

“Brooke from the-“ Scarlet starts, but Vanessa cuts her off.

 

“Yes, it’s her,” she mutters in confirmation.

 

The excited squeals of all three of Vanessa’s friends is deafening.

 

-x-

 

“I cannot believe you told you friends about me,” Brooke hisses the moment Vanessa’s bedroom door closes behind them.

 

“In my defence, I never thought you’d meet them,” she chuckles meekly.

 

“God this is so embarrassing,” Brooke groans. “How much do they know?”

 

“Well they know how we met.”

 

“Jesus.”

 

There’s all hope at a normal relationship with Vanessa’s friends gone out of the window.

 

“And they know that you’ve wanted to fuck me like it’s your last night on earth for the past six months.”

 

“Vanessa!”

 

Vanessa moves quickly to Brooke’s side and cups her face. “I’m just fucking with you,” she laughs quickly. “They don't know none of the personal shit, I swear.”

 

Brooke sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “What do they really know?”

 

“All they know is how we met and that I had a crush on you.”

 

Brooke’s resolve melts at Vanessa’s words. Picturing Vanessa pouring her heart out to her friends like a schoolgirl with a crush is unbearably adorable. Vanessa’s face lights up when she sees the grin that Brooke cannot contain and she lurches to tickle Brooke’s sides.

 

“I knew you could never be mad at me,” she teases, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes like butter wouldn’t melt.

 

-x-

 

Spending an evening with Vanessa’s friends is interesting to say the least. Brooke is hyper aware of the fact that she’s more than ten years older than all four of them until she’s two glasses of wine in and starts to relax. Laughing and chatting and drinking the night away makes her think affectionately of when this used to be how her and Nina would spend their weekends. She decides that she’s going to call her in the morning.

 

Vanessa’s friends are gracious enough to leave aside jokes about how Vanessa and Brooke met through a sex hotline, but Brooke assumes that this is the result of Vanessa’s words of warning to them that she’d overheard whilst in the bathroom.

 

_If you bitches scare her away I’m gonna beat the shit out of you all._

 

Charming, as always.

 

The words that follow, however, are the ones that stick with Brooke for the rest of the night.

 

_Relax, we’ve been waiting for you to get a girlfriend forever. We’re not going to fuck this up for you._

 

Setting aside the fact that Brooke is surprised Vanessa doesn't have a long list of women waiting to woo her, Brooke breath catches at the word girlfriend.

 

They’ve both told the other that they haven’t even come close to sleeping with anyone else in a very long while. They spend all of their free time together. They’re dating, for sure, but they haven’t used the word girlfriend yet.

 

The word ricochets around Brooke’s mind for the rest of the evening.

 

And when Vanessa’s friends eventually leave and she’s being dragged towards the bedroom with a demand that she finish what she’d started before they arrived, Brooke’s ears are still ringing.

 

She melts into Vanessa’s hungry kisses as she feels hands unbuckling her belt. The backs of her knees hit the bed and she tumbles into it, pulling Vanessa down with her, but when Vaessa climbs into her lap and start tugging at the buttons on her blouse, Brooke pulls away to look into her eyes.

 

“Are you my girlfriend?”

 

Vanessa grins, shakes her head in disbelief and laughs. “Are you joking?”

 

“Well we’ve never said it out loud before.”

 

Vanessa laughs harder, tickling Brooke’s side, using the vantage point of being in her lap. Brooke blushes and squirms away from Vanessa’s tickles.

 

“I’m serious, Ness. I’ve never done this before.”

 

“Done what?” Vanessa murmurs against her neck between hot, wet kisses, unaware of Brooke’s serious tone.

 

“This,” Brooke tells her softly, nudging Vanessa’s shoulder to get her full attention. “A relationship. Being a girlfriend. I’ve never done it before.”

 

Vanessa props herself up on her hands, hovering above Brooke. Her hair falls on either side of them, trapping them in their own little bubble.

 

“Ask me,” she whispers.

 

“What?”

 

“Ask me to be your girlfriend.”

 

Brooke chuckles and wraps her arms around Vanessa’s back.

 

“Go on, ask me. I’ll probably say yes,” she teases, rolling her hips against Brooke slowly.

 

“You’re ridiculous, Ness.”

 

“Ask m-“

 

“Will you be my girlfriend?” She asks, finally, beaming with joy.

 

Vanessa says yes. Not once, not twice, but hundreds of times, punctuated by hundreds of kisses on every inch of Brooke’s skin.

 

-x-

 

Ever since Brooke made partner at her law firm, she’s had more money than she knows what to do with. She’s never had a reason to treat herself, other than to expensive, tailored clothing and overpriced alcohol. She’s been too self conscious to go on vacation alone. She’s never had anyone to shower with gifts, until now.

 

It starts off on a small scale at first. Brooke insists on paying every time they go out on dates, or when they order food, or for Vanessa’s cab fare so that she doesn’t have to take the subway anymore. She rationalises it to Vanessa by saying that it’s no different from the money she was spending on their calls anyways.

 

The more comfortable she gets, the more the scale of her spending increases. In advance of taking her for brunch in an elegant, rooftop brasserie, she buys Vanessa a new dress and a sparkling silver necklace to match. She buys expensive, high thread count sheets for Vanessa’s bed, because she says she misses Brooke’s when she’s not there. And when Vanessa excitedly drags her by the hand around the biggest fabric store in the city, Brooke tells her to pick out whatever she wants.

 

There’s nothing wrong with it. It’s what Vanessa deserves.

 

They’ve been together for a month, however, when Brooke catches on to the fact that Vanessa is struggling financially.

 

She’d disconnected her work line the day after their first date, dropping the device unceremoniously into a trash can, followed by a disposable coffee cup, but had yet to find another job. At first, Brooke had been too caught up in their whirlwind romance to realise that without the fifteen hundred dollars a month that she was getting from their phone calls, Vanessa’s savings would start to plummet. Brooke can buy her all the gifts and take her on all the dates she likes, it isn’t going to pay for her rent and bills.

 

The idea comes to her when she’s at her desk and gets an over excited phone call from Vanessa, telling her that the tailoring on the last of the coats is finished and how excited she is to bring them around to her apartment. Brooke needs to give Vanessa the rest of the money, that Vanessa wont accept out of principle until the work is finished. But Brooke knows that Vanessa being unemployed is not only unsustainable, but entirely because of their relationship.

 

So, she asks her assistant to look up average rent prices in Vanessa’s area and makes a trip to the bank on the way home.

 

-x-

 

“What the fuck is this?” Vanessa asks, staring at the envelope in her hand in disbelieve.

 

Fuck.

 

Annoyance is not the typical reaction of a person who has just been handed three thousand dollars in cash. Brooke shifts uncomfortably and wraps her arms tightly around herself, looking at the garment bags laying on her dresser to avoid Vanessa’s accusing glare. Everything had been going so well. Vanessa had been bubbling with energy, excited for Brooke to try the coats on, but then Brooke had handed her the envelope and, well.

 

“It’s um- It isn’t a big deal, Ness. Just, I know you decided to stop working and I don’t want you to get behind on your rent because of me. I thought the money could help you until you find a new job.“

 

“Jesus. It ain’t enough for you to buy me expensive shit, now you’re gonna start throwing cash at me too?” Vanessa yells harshly, throwing the envelope back towards Brooke. Brooke wants to reign in this argument before it gets away from her, but Vanessa seems to be ready to escalate all the way to an eleven.

 

Brooke catches the envelope and holds it back out to her. “It’s for the coats. Take it.“

 

“This is ten times what you owe me for the coats.”

 

“You need money for-“

 

“Stop,” Vanessa snaps. “Will you just stop.” She snatches the envelope from Brooke’s hand and tosses it onto the bed. With a dramatic flourish, the bills shower across the sheets. “That ain’t how this works no more, you don’t have to buy me.”

 

Vanessa goes on, shouting like fucking nail gun. The barrage doesn’t stop, and Brooke can’t get a word in edgewise, so she lets it happen. Vanessa stalks back and forth across the room as she talks about how she hates feeling cheap, like something that needs to be bought. She’s repeating herself, just phrasing it in different ways, but trying to prevent it would be like trying to reign in a supernova.

 

When she pauses to take a breath, Brooke tries to say her piece.

 

“I’m not trying to buy you. I have the money, you need the money, why can’t I give it to you? You don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.”

 

“Shut up. Okay? Just shut up with that bullshit and stop treating me like I’m some sorta hood-rat sugar baby that’s following you around for your cash. That ain’t why I’m with you.”

 

Brooke shakes her head rapidly and can feel the tears burning at the corners of her eyes. “Baby, that’s not what I think of you.” Brooke stammers, moving to hold Vanessa to stop her from pacing and look up at her. “Where’s all this coming from?”

 

Vanessa pauses to breathe, then gradually, the rage falls from her face and is replaced by something much, much worse. Heartache. She sniffles and her breath hitches, then she shrugs her shoulders in defeat as she blinks away her tears.

 

They stand staring at one another in silence for a short while, breathing heavily allowing themselves a moment calm down from their heated fight. Brooke keeps a loose grip on Vanessa’s biceps, tethering her to reality. It’s not yet resolved, but as far as first fights go, it hasn’t been the worst experience.  Even fighting feels good when its with Vanessa. Aside from the yelling, she could’ve done without that.

 

Vanessa sits down on the edge of the bed and pats the space next to her for Brooke to sit down too.

 

“Brooke, I appreciate you doing all this shit for me but I don’t wanna be your responsibility, I just want to be your girlfriend. We can go for fancy dinners or whatever, but you thinking you’ve gotta just give me cash like I’m working for you ain’t right. It makes me feel cheap.”

 

Brooke nods slowly, realising how badly she’d overstepped. It had been foolish to think that someone as independent and strong as Vanessa would ever want anything handed to her. She works hard for what she has and she’s proud of it. Sure, she’s struggling, but she’s going to persevere. She’s the flower that grows after the forest fire.

 

Brooke slips her hand into Vanessa’s and laces their fingers together, then drops her head onto the smaller woman’s shoulder.

 

“I’m so sorry. I never wanted to make you feel that way. I know that you can’t be bought. I just wanted to show you” - _how much I love you-_ “how much I care.”

 

Vanessa turns to kiss her on the temple and rubs her thumb over the back of her hand. “I know.”

 

“I wasn’t thinking.”

 

“I know.”

 

Brooke tilts her head up towards Vanessa’s, and Vanessa meets her half way in a kiss, then Brooke pushes her down into the bed and apologises with her lips many, many times over. Her hands are still shaking from the effect of Vanessa’s yelling. She hates to be yelled at, more than anything, but it isn’t Vanessa’s fault. She couldn’t have known. Brooke decides to bring it up at a later time, because for now, she wants this to be all about Vanessa. Her feelings don’t matter, she’s good enough at hiding them. 

 

They say that everything will be okay in the end, but this is far from the end and Brooke is very much okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ya’ll shouldn’t have encouraged me by saying you liked the 5k chapters, because this chapter is 7k and I have regrets. The last three chapters (probably) wont be this long, I swear! I think I just got carried away... 
> 
> Please let me know what you think, it means the world to me!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vanessa likes it best when life is simple, which is ironic given the fact that she’s hopelessly in love with one of the most complicated women she’s ever met. She can’t change the way Brooke is, and she would never want to, but she can help her see how simple life can be, if only she gives it the chance.

Vanessa feels oddly at home in Brooke’s home, given that she’d only been in the apartment for a few hours. As they walk to the kitchen, basking in their post-coital glow, she thinks about how surreal this all is. Being in Brooke’s apartment. Getting to know her in ways that she never expected she would get to. It’s nice.

 

Brooke is so calm, her expression so painless, that for a little while, Vanessa forgets how badly she’s struggling. That is until Vanessa asks her why she only has one wine glass and before she knows it, she’s wiping away Brooke’s tears once more. It breaks her fucking heart. She throws away Brooke’s solitary wine glass on an impulse, not entirely sure of the point that she’s trying to make, then tells her that they need to buy two. All she knows s that it’s a promise. _I’m here now. You’re not alone anymore._

 

“Now we have nothing to drink wine out of.”

 

“We can drink outa mugs.”

 

Vanessa likes it best when life is simple, which is ironic given the fact that she’s hopelessly in love with one of the most complicated women she’s ever met. She can’t change the way Brooke is, and she would never want to, but she can help her see how simple life can be, if only she gives it the chance.

 

Upset by the sight of your solitary wine glass? Throw it out.

 

Struggling to make conversation because you’ve both just had the best sex of your life and you’re unsure where to go from here? Tell me your three favourite colours in reverse order so that we can think about something else.

 

Anxiously glancing at the lamp on the bedside table because you don’t know how to say that you’re afraid to sleep in the dark? Let’s just leave it on.

 

Not everything has to be complicated and Vanessa wants to makes sure that Brooke knows it. Because it turns out that loving Brooke is a very, very easy thing to do.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa awakes with a start at the unfamiliar surroundings. Her bed is too big and too comfortable and there’s a woman sleeping quietly beside her, which hasn’t happened in years. Then the memories of the night before come flooding back, pooling in her abdomen as a gentle glow. Carefully, so that she doesn’t wake her, Vanessa shifts onto her side and brushes the stray hairs from Brooke’s face. She’s utterly serene whilst she sleeps. Soft and beautiful. Her hair is fanned out on the pillow beside her and she has one hand slipped between her cheek. Like a princess in a fairytale, waiting for her true loves kiss. Vanessa wants to be her knight in shining armour. 

 

The moment she sees Brooke start to stir, she wriggles closer and tucks herself under Brooke’s arm, needily tangling their limbs in a tight embrace. Through a sleep induced haze, Brooke pulls her closer and mumbles _good morning,_ then starts to trace lazy patterns on her naked shoulder blade. Vanessa adores the fact that she’s already so comfortable in Brooke’s bed. Like it was made for the both of them.

 

They both groan when Brooke’s alarm blares from her mobile on the bedside table, but Vanessa purrs in Brooke’s ear promises that if she calls in sick to work, they won't leave this bed for the rest of the day. Brooke seems to entertain the notion, tugging Vanessa into her lap and kissing her slowly, but before things get too heated, Brooke pulls away with a gentle smile and promises Vanessa that they can continue this another time. Patience isn’t a virtue Vanessa possesses, so she suggests they continue in the shower as a compromise.

 

Vanessa loves Brooke’s height. She loves the way Brooke towers over her without even trying, but in the shower, Vanessa realises that what she will never be able to get enough of is the sight of Brooke staring up at her. Wide pupils gazing over thick eyelashes as she kisses and licks and nips down Vanessa’s stomach. She hooks her leg over Brooke’s shoulder and clutches onto her hands for balance as an earth shattering orgasm comes crashing over her. Brooke laps at her the entire time, never pausing for breath.

 

She knows that she’s being spoiled, but Brooke is right, she fucking loves it. Over the phone, she wondered if Brooke’s insistence on always focusing on Vanessa’s pleasure instead of her own had been part of some game, but in the less than twelve hours that they’ve been in each other’s company, Vanessa has realised that Brooke truly puts her first in every way she can. She’s astonishing. Unique. Truly singular. 

 

As she washes Brooke’s body, slowly sliding her hands over her soft curves, Vanessa’s fingertips ghost up her inner thigh, with the intention of showing Brooke just how grateful she is for her attentiveness, but Brooke circles her wrist with her fingers to stop her.

 

“You don’t have to,” she tells her quietly, as though its some type of burden. As though Vanessa doesn’t want anything more than to have the most gorgeous woman in the world writhing on her fingers.

 

“No, but I want to. I want to so badly. Please let me,” Vanessa purrs into her ear, nudging her hand away and resuming her decent. Brooke had been the same in bed the night before, trying to shift all the focus onto Vanessa instead of herself. It had taken an incredible amount of coaxing and reassurances before she let Vanessa touch her. It’s no surprise, given Brooke’s multitude of insecurities. It’s just another one of Brooke’s walls that Vanessa is going to work desperately hard to take down.

 

-x-

 

It’s surprising how quickly Vanessa’s life shifts to accommodate another person. After their first date in Central Park, Brooke consumes her. Her thoughts and hopes and dreams. She starts keeping track of little things that she’d never had to take into consideration before, like the chill in the air when she sun is setting that indicates it’s time for them to head home. It doesn’t feel inconvenient. It’s a privilege that Brooke wants them to be a real part of each other’s lives, so she’s more than willing to put in the work to make it count.

 

She can see Brooke putting in the work too, not just with their relationship, but with herself. She’s growing and changing and getting better every day and, honestly, it takes Vanessa’s breath away. The way that she stops trying to hide it from embarrassment when she’s taking her medication in the morning. How she pins her therapy appointment cards onto the fridge, as though on some level she’s proud of the fact that she’s going and she wants Vanessa to know. It’s beautiful.

 

When Brooke finally meets her friends and asks, after being prompted, if Vanessa will be her girlfriend, there’s no way to describe how Vanessa is feeling other than that everything _makes sense_. Everything slides into place and she wonders how she never realised that so much was missing. How did she not know how badly she needed someone to nuzzle into her side whilst they sleep, or how having that one person to turn to when nothing is going well makes the darkness seem worth it.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa stands in her kitchen, gazing at the empty cupboards that taunt her. She’s managed to make her scholarship money stretch a little further this term, on account of the fact that most of her time over the past two months has been spent with Brooke, who insists on paying for everything, but she’s dipping dangerously close to the bottom of her savings account and she can’t go on like this indefinitely.

 

“We should just order takeout,” Akeria sighs from where she sits at the small kitchen table. They have a group presentation to prepare for, on the history of the hemline, so they’ve decided to hole up in Vanessa’s apartment until it’s done.

 

“You think my broke ass can afford to order takeout?”

 

Akeria scoffs. “Just get your rich ole sugar mama to order it for us.”

 

Vanessa knows it’s a joke, but the words sting. She’s never wanted Brooke for her money. Thinking about the thousands upon thousands of dollars that Brooke had paid to her in the months before they started their relationship still doesn’t sit right with Vanessa. She isn’t just some cheap slut that can be bought by shiny new things. Brooke doesn’t exist in Vanessa’s life just to pay for her shit and wear her like arm candy. They’re in love. Or at least, Vanessa thinks they are. They haven’t said it yet, but Vanessa feels it and she _knows_ in her heart that Brooke feels it too. If she could change the way they’d met, she would. But she can’t. All she can do is erase any semblance of the idea that this relationship is based on anything other than themselves.

 

“It aint like that, Kiki.”

 

“You in love with her or something?”

 

“You don’t gotta make fun-“

 

“God, you are,” Akeria grins. “Well, I’m happy for you, Vanj.”

 

-x-

 

Their first fight as a couple isn’t as awful as Vanessa expects. It seems to be over as quickly as it begins. Vanessa knows she flies off the handle and escalates to a much greater extent than she needs to, but staring at the wad of cash in her hands makes her feel cheap and dirty and nobody ever taught her how to let out her anger in a way other than yelling. Brooke apologises when it’s over, but as they shuffle to the middle of the bed, lips locked in passion, the guilt creeps in. She’d seen the way Brooke’s hands trembled and her eyes went glassy as she’d been yelling, but she hadn’t relented. She’d gone on and on and on, pushing harder and cutting deeper.

 

She’s about to pull back so that they can talk about it when she feels dampness pooling on her cheek.

 

“Brooke, you’re crying?”

 

Brooke pulls back and brushes her fingers under her eyes, looking down at them as though she genuinely hadn’t realised. “I’m fine, it’s nothing,” she lies, leaning down for another kiss, but Vanessa pulls away again.

 

“It ain’t nothin, you’re crying.”

 

“I’m not.”

 

Vanessa sighs deeply and sits up in bed. “It was the yelling, wasn’t it?”

 

Brooke nods and the tears come thicker. She would struggle to pretend she isn’t crying now. “I’m sorry, Ness. I just can’t handle yelling, it’s not your fault-“

 

“Stop. Don’t you make excuses for me.” Vanessa brushes Brooke’s cheek gently. “I’m so sorry.”

 

“Ness-“ she tries to interrupt.

 

“No. It’s my fault. I was loud and thoughtless and I made you cry, that’s on me. So dont make excuses for me. I was wrong and I’m so, so, sorry baby.”

 

Brooke nods, but the tears don’t stop. Vanessa pulls Brooke against her chest and rocks her gently, whispering apologies instead of ‘I love you’s and vowing to herself that she will never, ever raise her voice to Brooke again.

 

-x-

 

“I told you it was going to rain,” Brooke grins, looking down at her sodden clothes.

 

“Sorry I didn’t realise you were a damn weather forecaster, mami,” Vanessa pouts, running a finger though her damp tangled hair. She’d been the one to tell Brooke that they could walk the short distance between their new favorite lunch spot and Brooke’s apartment before the storm broke. Clearly, she had been wrong.

 

Brooke rolls her eyes at Vanessa’s attitude, then drags her by the hand to the en-suite in her bedroom, where she turns on the tap to draw a bath and starts to peel away the wet clothes that cling to Vanessa’s body. She sighs in content as Brooke stands behind her and covers her neck in warm, open mouthed kisses, massaging her shoulders as she does. Vanessa knows that she’s never going to cope in a relationship where she isn’t spoiled rotten again, not that she could see herself ever wanting anyone other than Brooke. Brooke makes her feel safe and warm and protected, just by being there. She’s everything. She’s a hard drug. She’s bliss. 

 

When the bath is drawn, brimming with bubbles and soothing oils, Brooke picks Vanessa up bridal style and carries her to the tub. Vanessa giggles and buries her face in Brooke’s neck bashfully, but moans as she touches the water. Brooke then takes off her own clothes and climbs into the tub behind Vanessa, then parts her legs so that Vanessa can settle between them. She purrs as she leans back against Brooke’s chest and feels her strong arms curl around her waist.

 

“We should do this more often.”

 

“What, get caught in the rain?”

 

“Take baths together,” Vanessa sighs, eyes fluttering shut as Brooke’s fingers explore her skin. Grazing her nipples and her abdomen and her inner thighs. She drops her head onto Brooke’s shoulder as her wandering fingers delve lower. The only sounds are Vanessa’s soft pants and the delicate ripple of the water as Brooke’s fingers work their magic. 

 

As she comes, it isn’t earth shattering, only warm and satisfying as she feels the tension leave her body. Brooke chuckles as her rapid strokes turn to slow, lazy ones, simultaneously coaxing Vanessa down from her orgasm whilst winding her up her for another. This time, Brooke hikes Vanessa’s leg up to drape over the edge of the tub, so that she can get better access. Her teeth sink into Vanessa’s shoulder as she presses two fingers inside of her.

 

It’s almost too much. Vanessa is rendered speechless. Edges of her vision fading to white. She comes with a shudder, sending water spilling over onto the floor. When she comes back down from her high, and her moaning subsides, Brooke pulls Vanessa tightly against her chest once more, and Vanessa promises that the moment they’re back in the bedroom, Brooke is going to sit on her face until she’s come three times over.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa knows she can’t waste all day laying in Brooke’s bed alone, but for some reason she cannot connect that thought with the will to get up and leave. The bed is warm and impossibly soft and smells like Brooke’s tea tree body wash. She could lay here for hours with Brooke, but when she’s here alone, that’s when she truly thinks that she’ll never be able to sleep in a normal bed again. The luxurious sheets. Disgustingly perfect pillows. The way that she can lay in the middle and stretch out as much as possible but still not reach the edges. Anything less that this is ruined for her.

 

It’s Monday morning and she has the day off class, but plenty of errands. Nevertheless, the hours tick by. 9am. 10am. 11am. She drifts around Brooke’s apartment idly, washing their dishes from the night before and straightening the pillows tousled from their heated encounter that almost didn’t make it off the couch. But she can’t help but find herself drawn back into the bed. It beckons her, tantalisingly.

 

She’s toying with the idea of fucking herself and leaving her damp panties tangled in the sheets, for Brooke to find when she gets home, when she gets a phone call. It’s Brooke, asking if she’s still in the apartment and promising her anything at all that she wants in exchange for finding a folder that she’d forgotten this morning and bringing it to her office. Vanessa grumbles and tells Brooke that she’s lucky she’s so damn cute, then agrees to make the journey.

 

-x-

 

The receptionist in the buildings foyer is less than subtle about eyeing Vanessa up and down as she walks into the building. A short denim skirt and a loose button up blouse are only clothes she’d had at Brooke’s apartment and she knows she’s underdressed to be in a place like this. The receptionists stare is unnerving, but what’s interesting is how quickly the disapproval turns to stammering respect when Vanessa tells her who she’s here to see.  Instead of _I think you have the wrong address_ it’s _pardon me, miss, let me get you a coffee._

 

The power in Brooke’s name alone sends a jolt of arousal directly to Vanessa’s lower abdomen. As does the tentative glances of nosey interns and the hushed whispers of _I think she’s Ms Hytes girlfriend_ that she hears as she leaves the elevator _._ Brooke’s power makes her feel untouchable. Like she could walk through the bullpen in the centre of the office shirtless, and nobody would dare look twice. By the time she reaches Brooke’s office, she’s practically vibrating with energy. When her assistant buzzes the intercom to tell her that Vanessa has arrived and she replies with a clipped “thank you, send her in,” Vanessa worries that maybe office-Brooke is going to be different from the Brooke she knows.

 

But then she pushes open the office door and Brooke is already striding across the room to greet her with a gigantic, dopey smile on her face, staring at her with big wide eyes, like she’s proud of her for just existing. And Vanessa wonders how it’s possible that anyone in this office sees her as anything other than the soft, gentle, impossibly kind hearted woman that she is. She’s barefoot - heels kicked off beneath her desk - and she pads across the room swiftly to pull Vanessa into her arms and bury her face in the crook of her neck.

 

“Hard day?” Vanessa asks, rubbing Brooke’s back slowly. She groans in response.

 

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

 

Vanessa kisses her temple softly, then guides her back to the chair behind her desk. Once she’s sat down, Vanessa carefully climbs into Brooke’s lap, sitting on one side of her, with her legs draped over Brooke’s legs and dangling off the other side of the chair. Her arm snakes around Brooke’s waist and her lips find her neck. She pecks her slowly at first, ghosting her warm breath over Brooke’s cool skin, then flicks her tongue out, more and more until she’s sucking at Brooke’s throat needily. 

 

“I have to work, baby,” Brooke tells her, but makes no effort to move.

 

“I ain’t stopping you. Just helping you to relax.”

 

Brooke chuckles and slides the chair closer to her desk, so that she can reach her computer, then angles her chin upward slightly, exposing more of her slender neck for Vanessa to kiss.

 

“Come be my assistant, I want you here every day,” Brooke purrs, eyes never leaving her computer screen. She has one arm curved around Vanessa’s back, hand on her mouse, scrolling through various documents, and the other has undone two buttons on Vanessa’s blouse so that she can cup her over her bra.

 

Vanessa tugs softly on Brooke’s earlobe with her teeth, then nuzzles beneath her jaw. “Okay, mommy,” she smirks. They haven’t done the mommy thing in a while, but it never fails to elicit a filthy reaction from Brooke, which is exactly what Vanessa wants. Brooke groans and the arm curved protectively around Vanessa’s back tightens slightly, but she maintains her focus on her work. So, Vanessa tries again. She toys with the buttons of Brooke’s shirt, popping them open one by one, and sucks gently on her collarbone.

 

“No lipstick on my shirt, baby girl,” Brooke warns. The reminder that they’re in Brooke’s office during the middle of the day and anyone could catch them at any given minute is exhilarating. Like she’s playing with fire.

 

Vanessa whimpers and returns to gentle kisses, then her breath catches in her throat as she feels Brooke’s hand slip out of her blouse and onto her inner thigh. Inching higher and higher, with gentle caresses and the delicate scrape of her nails. Vanessa’s whimpers turn to moans, but Brooke shushes her softly and kisses her temple, stroking her through her panties as she continues to work.

 

Later that afternoon, when Brooke takes Vanessa on her arm back down to the building’s entrance, she asks the security desk to make her a frequent visitors pass. If anyone notices that it took Vanessa over an hour to drop off a folder, they don't dare to mention it.

 

-x-

 

“Your pan is overheating,” Brooke tells her from where she sits at the breakfast bar, watching Vanessa struggle to keep track of her various dishes, sipping on a glass of wine.

 

“Fuck, ain’t you gonna help me?” Vanessa grumbles as she struggles to keep track of her dishes.

 

Brooke chuckles and shakes her head, reminding her that it had been her idea to cook dinner by herself for once, since Brooke has had such a shitty week at work. Vanessa pouts and tells Brooke that if she doesn’t get help, she isn’t going to put out tonight, earning her a raised eyebrow of scepticism as Brooke takes another sip of her wine.

 

Eventually, the spiced lamb begins to darken at the edges, the vegetables in the pan are cooking at the right temperature, and the potatoes are close to being finished, so, Vanessa can finally breathe. She’s in the process of taking three more wine glasses out of the cupboard when the doorbell rings. With a huff, she reaches to untie her apron from around her waist.

 

“I’ll get it, baby,” Brooke tells her, pecking her cheek as she leaves the room.

 

Moments later, the apartment is filled with the hustle and bustle of Yvie, Scarlet and Akeria, as they probe and pry, marvelling at the grandeur of it all. Brooke blushes softly as they fan out, exploring the space, complimenting her impeccable decorating skills and the beauty of her cats. When the gaggle reaches the kitchen and Vanessa can’t move without somebody being under her goddamn feet, she swats them away with a tea towel.

 

“Can’t you see I’m tryna be a good housewife? Fuck off outa here,” she yells brashly, then grabs Brooke’s wrist and whispers a soft _not you_ before she leaves.

 

Seeing Brooke grinning and laughing and acting the fool with her friends is making Vanessa feel some type of way and she needs to make it clear. The moment her friends disappear into the dining room, she has Brooke pulled flush against her, with her fist in her hair and her tongue in her throat, murmuring promises of ever filthy thing she’s going to do to her later.

 

-x-

 

At the end of the evening, when her friends have left and things start to wind down, Vanessa finishes tidying up in the lounge only to find Brooke in the kitchen, crying. She rushes to her where she stands at the sink washing dishes and pulls her away so that they can stand face to face.

 

“What’s happened?”

 

“Happy tears,” Brooke smiles softly. Vanessa nods in understanding, waiting for her to continue. “I’ve never had to do this many dishes before.”

 

Vanessa’s heart breaks, then pulls itself back together again, all in the blink of an eye. Brooke spent so long isolating herself that it was killing her, slowly but surely. But now she’s letting people back in and she’s smiling and laughing and crying because she spent so much time alone that doing multiple dishes feels like a blessing. Vanessa isn’t certain that whatever she says next wont come out as a strangled sob, so she cups Brooke’s cheek and swipes away one of her tears.

 

“If I knew you were gonna cry over doing the dishes I woulda made those three hoes do them before they left,” she teases gently.

 

Brooke laughs, throwing her head back and baring all of her teeth. Her shoulders shaking softly as she nudges Vanessa and calls her an asshole for ruining the moment. Brooke tries to pull her into a kiss, but Vanessa is quicker. She scoops up a handful of bubbles from the top of the skin and blows them towards Brooke, showering her in the soapy foam. Momentarily, Brooke stops laughing and her eyes darken, and Vanessa worries that she’s pissed her off.

 

“You little fucker,” she smirks, scooping up a handful of bubbles of her own.

 

Vanessa shrieks with laughter as she sprints away from Brooke, who chases her though the apartment. Around the dining room table and the living room couch and through the halls. Like children on a playground. Their downstairs neighbours will almost certainly have something to say about it in the morning. When they reach the bedroom, Vanessa realises that she has nowhere else to run and tries to climb up onto the bed and out of Brooke’s reach, but Brooke manages to catch her around the waist and pull her down so that they both tumble onto the bed.

 

Vanessa cackles, howling with laughter as Brooke pins her down, tickling her sides. She squeals, telling Brooke to stop as her fingers dart for the muscles of Vanessa’s stomach, but she’s determined not to lose this battle, so she uses all of her strength to push herself up and cover Brooke’s lips in a kiss. It works a treat, and Brooke’s relentless tickles come to an end, replaced by her hand on the back of her neck, pulling her closer as they kiss bruisingly.

 

Vanessa reaches to pull Brooke’s shirt up, desperate for the feeling of her skin, when Brooke pulls away. She hovers over Vanessa, her hands pinned on either side of her head, legs straddling her thighs. Their breathing comes in ragged pants as their eyes lock, pupils blown with lust.

 

“Vanessa, I love you,” she whispers, voice trembling. Vanessa opens her mouth to respond but Brooke continues. “I love you. I’m in love with you. I love you,” she fumbles rapidly, without taking a breath, as though she can’t get the words out quick enough.

 

They say you only fall in love once, but that can't be true. Because every time Brooke speaks the words, Vanessa falls in love all over again. She could search her whole life and never find a single soul that so perfectly aligns with hers as Brooke’s does. Whatever souls are made of, theirs are the same.

 

“I love you, too.”

 

-x-

 

The feeling of violent thrashing beside her jolts Vanessa awake. She squints as her eyes adjust to the light from the bedside lamp, and stretches out her arms to blindly feel for Brooke, as though its second nature. Brooke is strong, but when it comes to keeping Brooke safe, Vanessa is stronger. She tightens her arms around Brooke, stroking her hair and whispering soothing words against her temple.

 

She’s had nightmares before, but never this bad. Usually, Vanessa will only realise that Brooke has had a nightmare when she wakes up to see a cold cup of tea on the nightstand on her side, or gets up to go to the bathroom and realises that the main light has been switched on. Vanessa knows that for Brooke, the worst part isn’t the nightmare itself, it’s afterwards, when she’s laying awake and trying not to cry because she thinks it means her therapy isn’t working and she isn’t getting better. In the two months that they’ve been together, Vanessa has tried to tell Brooke to wake her up when it happens, but so far, she never has.

 

Brooke’s panicked breaths gradually calm and she slumps against Vanessa, burrowing her face into her neck.

 

“I’ve got you,” Vanessa whispers, feeling the damp combination of sweat and tears against her skin.

 

“Is it always the same dream?” Vanessa asks after a while, unable to hold back her curiosity.

 

Brooke sighs deeply and moves away from Vanessa to rest her head on her own pillow and look up at the ceiling. Vanessa lays on her side and interlinks their fingers, waiting for Brooke to be ready to speak.

 

“I used to love being outside at night. There are two subway stations close to my office block, and sometimes I’d walk to the one that’s further away, just so that I could be outside for a little longer.”

 

“Baby, you don’t have to-“ Vanessa trails off. It’s a delicate balance between making sure Brooke knows she can share what she wants to, but also that she knows she could go the rest of her life without talking about what happened to her and Vanessa would support her all the same. Brooke squeezes Vanessa’s hand as a reassurance.

 

Brooke goes on, telling Vanessa about how the temperature at night starts to fall below comfortable around the end of September, but one night it happened to be especially warm out, so she’d decided to walk home. Foolishly, along unfamiliar streets. Someone had cornered her, demanded she hand over her purse and very visibly expensive watch. She said no. He reacted poorly.

 

“I wish there was a better story,” she says quietly. “One minute I was mouthing off like an over confident asshole, the next, he was flicking out a knife. Just like that.”

 

She describes vividly how the knife had felt as though it seared her flesh, piercing her through her coat and blazer and shirt and flesh with one swift motion. She tells Vanessa about how for the first time in her life she realised that she isn't invincible, but more than that, she realised that she was very, very alone. From that night, her mental health deteriorated and she’d gotten deeper and deeper into a depressive spiral, some of which Vanessa has witnessed first hand.

 

As she speaks, Brooke doesn’t cry or falter, she simply relays the events, like she’s summarising the news. It's very telling of the fact that she’s thought about precious little else since that night, going over and over what happened until in a strange sense, it feels as though it happened to someone else. Vanessa doesn't know what to say. She wants to comfort Brooke, she wants to help and protect and love her.

 

But all she can think about is how much she needs to call Yvie.

 

-x-

 

Vanessa doesn’t get the chance to speak to Yvie until a few days later, and when she does, the words that she’s had bottled up inside of her come pouring out. Even as she’s saying them, she knows how ridiculous she sounds, but she has to be sure.

 

“Vanj, you realise how insane that sounds, right?” Yvie sighs.

 

“But is it? It was the same time of year. Same part’a town. Tall blonde white lady with an expensive purse-”

 

“No. It’s wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her. Think about how unlikely it is.”

 

The room is spinning. Nothing feels right. Everything is very, very wrong.

 

They’d witnessed a mugging taking place. Hidden behind a dumpster because they'd been so terrified. Called the cops and hadn’t looked back. Vanessa had managed to stave off the guilt for almost two years, telling herself that there was nothing they could’ve done anyways. That the woman they’d seen emerged from the assault a little shaken but otherwise unharmed.

 

But now, the guilt is eating her alive.

 

_What if the woman they’d seen had been Brooke?_

 

-x-

 

Guilt is to the spirit, what pain is to the body. It aches. It chips away. It’s consuming and exhausting and it isn’t going to fix itself.

 

Vanessa knows that Brooke can pick up on it, too. She offers her cheek instead of her lips for a soft peck when she arrives at the apartment and sees a flicker of confusion across Brooke’s face. When Brooke asks how was lunch with Yvie, she stammers _fine, everything is fine_ way too quickly. No amount of guilt can change the past, all it can do is fuck up the present.

 

This doesn’t get better until they talk about it.

 

But maybe Vanessa is just a sucker for pain, because she doesn’t bring it up.

 

Brooke is more understanding than most when it comes to knowing what a person needs when they’re having a bad day. She doesn’t pester Vanessa to tell her whats wrong, she simply keeps up the conversation for the both of them as Vanessa watches almost silently whilst she’s cooking dinner. When she serves up the pasta into two bowls and sets one across from each of them, she presses a gentle kiss into Vanessa’s temple and tells her that it’s okay if she doesn’t want to eat it.

 

Brooke being kind is making this worse. As she sips her wine and pulls the sleeves of her jumper down over her fingertips, all Vanessa can think about is Brooke being alone and cold and terrified. Bleeding out in the street. Clutching her hand to her abdomen. Maybe she screamed, or maybe she clenched her jaw and tried to focus on breathing through ragged, strained breaths.

 

_It wasn’t her. It couldn’t have been her._

 

Yvie’s words are ringing in her mind like an echo in a hallway. Logically, Vanessa knows the chances of it having been Brooke are minute. Of all the people in all the city, the odds of their paths having crossed more than once in such extremely significant, yet wildly unrelated circumstances, is almost non existent. And yet, there’s still a chance.

 

What if Vanessa had been _right there_ on the night that Brooke was attacked? Been there and done nothing. She could’ve prevented all of this from happening, if only she’d been brave enough to step in and help her. Brooke could have been okay.

 

“Do you want some ice cream?” Brooke asks her quietly, dragging her from her thoughts. Vanessa stares at the untouched pasta in front of her and shakes her head. She doesn’t want anything other than to have the courage to tell Brooke what’s plaguing her mind.

 

_Just tell her. She’ll understand. It probably won’t even matter to her._

 

But what if Yvie is wrong? What if it does matter to her?

 

“Do you want me to run you a bath?”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“Do you want to leave? I can call you an uber.”

 

She shakes her head again.

 

“Tell me what you want, Ness.” Brooke is speaking softly, like she’s talking to a child, and crouching slightly beside the chair that she sits at, so that they are face to face. When Brooke reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, it’s all too much.

 

“I have to tell you something.”

 

-x-

 

From the moment Vanessa speaks, the atmosphere in the room changes. Brooke’s body goes rigid with anticipation, even though she tries to nod gently and cover it. Vanessa can practically hear Brooke’s anxiety reverberating around the room as she promises _you can tell me anything_ then asks if she should sit back down.

 

It takes Vanessa a few moments to ready herself and she’s already crying before the first words are spoken, but when they are, they can’t seem to stop.

 

“Around two years ago, Yvie and I were walking to the subway after going to a new bar in a different part of town. I think it was like September or October time but I don’t really remember. But I know that it was still warm out cause I didn’t have a jacket on even though Yvie told me I shoulda brought one.”

 

“Okay.”

 

She’s still nodding with understanding. Vanessa wishes she would stop.

 

“We were kinda drunk and almost at the subway when we saw- well when we heard- we um.” The words stick in her throat and Brooke reaches out across the table to hold her hand, rubbing soothing circles with her thumb.

 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.”

 

“I do.” She takes a deep breath before starting again. “We heard yelling. We thought it was just some drunk asshole, until we got a little closer and um-“

 

Brooke’s thumb freezes.

 

“He was um- We thought he mighta been mugging somebody. I wanted to help but we were so scared. Yvie said that we should just hide and call the cops and I didn’t know what else to do so we um-“

 

“So you hid and called the cops?”

 

Vanessa nods.

 

“And then what happened?”

 

“And then we left. We didnt go back. We didn’t help her. We just left.”

 

Brooke wont meet Vanessa’s eye.

 

“And you feel guilty because you think it might have been me?”

 

Vanessa nods slowly. Hot, wet, tears fall down her cheeks. “I know it ain’t likely that it was you, but ever since you told me what happened, I can't stop thinking about it.”

 

Brooke pulls her hand away and runs it through her hair, then shakes her head and stands up. Her other hand is trembling by her side. Vanessa watches in silence as Brooke thinks. The seconds tick by like hours.

 

“Brooke, say something.”

 

She doesn’t. Vanessa doesn’t know how long to leave it before trying again.

 

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

 

Deafening silence.

 

“It’s okay if you’re mad.”

 

“It probably wasn’t you.”

 

Brooke’s face snaps towards her. “Do you think that makes it alright?”

 

Like a deer caught in the headlights, Vanessa freezes. She opens her mouth to speak but the words won’t come. They’re caught in a tangle of apologies and excuses and barbed wire and fear. Because, no, that doesn’t make it alright.

 

“Has anything like that ever happened to you?” Brooke asks slowly, pausing only momentarily for Vanessa to shake her head. “Have you ever felt so fucking certain that you’re going to die. Alone. In the cold. Waiting for someone to come and tell you that everything’s going to be alright.”

 

Tears blur Vanessa’s vision as she reaches out for Brooke’s hand, but Brooke jerks away swiftly.

 

“Don’t touch me.”

 

Brooke gets up from the dining table and walks into the lounge. Vanessa follows her, pleading with her to stop.

 

“It wasn’t you, Brooke.”

 

She turns and grabs Vanessa by the bicep, not hard enough to hurt, but firm enough to hold her at arms length away from herself. “I don’t fucking care if it wasn’t me. It was _somebody_. You saw someone getting attacked in the street and you did nothing. Nobody’s expecting you tackle an armed robber in the street, but you didn’t go back. You left her. And she was alone and scared and it ruined her fucking life.”

 

Vanessa understands why Brooke can’t stand yelling. Having someone you love screaming at you, unable to fight back because you know you’re in the wrong, it’s soul destroying. It’s like watching an avalanche rumble towards you. Terrifying and gut wrenching, yet utterly unstoppable. She feels powerless and small and disgusted with herself because she knows Brooke is right.

 

Vanessa feels as though Brooke’s hold on her arm is the only thing keeping her upright, but then that’s gone too. Brooke stops mid breath, and releases Vanessa from her soft grip, staring at her hand in disbelief, and Vanessa is sure this will be the point in the argument where they apologise and cry and everything will be okay.

 

But it isn’t.

 

Brooke turns to walk away from her again, except this time, she heads for the bedroom.

 

Helplessly, Vanessa watches as Brooke yanks the drawer out of the left bedside table so hard that she’s surprised it doesn’t break. Its contents are dumped onto the bed. Vanessa’s lipstick. Her socks. Stubs from art galleries and movie theatres that they’d visited. The tiny little spoons from the ice cream in Central Park.

 

“What are you doing?” She whispers from the doorway, afraid to get any closer.

 

Brooke opens the closet and pulls out Vanessa’s clothes, adding them to the pile on the bed.

 

“You’re leaving.”

 

The words hit Vanessa like a speeding train and take all the air from her lungs. She shakes her head in refusal. “Brooke don’t do this.”

 

“I mean it.”

 

Brooke enters the en-suite, only to emerge with an armful of Vanessa’s toiletries and hurl them onto the bed too.

 

“Can’t we just talk-“

 

“No, Vanessa. There’s nothing to say.”

 

”But I lov-“

 

“Don’t,” Brooke cuts her off. Momentarily, the harshness in Brooke’s voice falls. Her face drops and she takes a step closer. “Don’t use that to win a fight,” she whispers. Vanessa nods.

 

They’re both crying. Brooke, silently, through gritted teeth and harsh words. Vanessa with choked, pleading sobs.

 

“You saw someone going through what I went through and you did nothing. You’re not the person I thought you were. I want you to leave. Take your things and just get out. If there’s anything of mine at your place, just fucking keep it.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Chapters 8, 9 and 10 will be around 10k words in total.  
> Also me: Writes chapter 8 in 6.5k words.  
> Whoops. 
> 
> Sorry this chapter took a while. I had a break from writing whilst I moved house and found that I had massive writers block when I came to start this chapter. Feel free to let me know what you think, or if anything doesn’t make sense, because I’m not sure if this is my best work tbh. But nevertheless I hope you enjoy it!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brooke is relived when Vanessa is finally ready to talk about what’s bothering her, but no words have the power to strike fear into a person more than a softly spoken “I need to tell you something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for assault and blood.

_There’s no better feeling than the first step out onto the street after a long night of hard work. Going from being cooped up in a stuffy, yet eerily silent office, to feeling the cool breeze and hearing the sounds of the city._

 

_They say that New York is the city that never sleeps._

 

_And Brooke Lynn Hytes adores it._

 

_A glance at the Rolex on her wrist tells her that on this evening she’s worked much later than usual. The interns’ quarterly review is due soon, and making it clear through their reports exactly how much more work they’re going to need to put in if they ever want to be like her, is oddly exhilarating. The fire in her belly that spurs her onwards, making her the last to leave the building, yet again._

 

_Maybe it’s because she’s in a state of elation, or maybe it's just global warming, but the night seems different somehow. The air is pleasantly warm as it kisses her cheeks and tousles her hair. Like an open invitation to walk home, just to spend a little extra time in its embrace. As she walks, she unashamedly glances at herself in every reflective storefront. Poised and self assured and elegant. Not a hair out of place. Not one single smudge to her blood red lipstick._

 

_Untouchable._

 

_“That’s a pretty watch, sweetheart.”_

 

_The words don’t register with her at first, so she keeps walking. The soft clack of her heels reverberating off the narrow brick walls of the street she’s taking._

 

_“I said, that’s a pretty watch.”_

 

_Closer this time. Sneering, almost. She glances over her shoulder to see a man, his strides matching hers._

 

_“Not interested,” she mutters curtly, turning away._

 

_“I didn’t ask if you were interested.” Her arm is gripped, stopping her in her tracks. “Take off the watch.”_

 

_The man is tall, but not quite as tall as her. His eyes are piercing, but not in the way she knows hers to be. She isn't afraid of many things, but least of all, him. She scoffs, tugging her arm free. But it’s only free for mere seconds, and his grip is tighter this time._

 

_“Take off the fucking watch. And give me your purse too.”_

 

_Brooke’s air of indifference falters, but only briefly, then she slides right back into exuding a calm, collected energy._

 

_“No.”_

 

_Silence. Gritted teeth. Her arm is twisted and pinned behind her back. Degrading insults are spat at her venomously. The streetlights shine in a new way, catching her eye as they glint off of the cold, sharp steel. All within the blink of an eye._

 

_First, there’s the impact, which doesn’t feel real._

 

_Then a tingling, electrifying sensation. Thousands upon thousands of nerve endings ignited, screaming out in unison. Circuits that have been broken._

 

_Then, there’s the heat. Blazing, scorching, searing heat, piercing through her abdomen. The feel of the warm wet tears at they roll down her cheeks. The sizzling sting of her knees, as the skin tears when she hits the ground. The hot, wet, sticky blood that insults her nostrils with its metallic tang as it coats her fingers, blossoming like a rose in spring._

 

_But none of that is the worst part. The worst part is the chill that follows._

 

_The more blood she loses, the colder she becomes. The pleasant warmth of the night air is replaced by an icy chill that grips her right to her bones. To her heart, when she realises that she’s alone. And anything but untouchable. Violent shivers overcome her. Minutes pass. Or maybe hours. Or days. Time itself ceases to exist._

 

_She feels nothing._

 

_Pain, lots of pain. But nothing else._

 

-x-

 

“Hold still, I don’t have the camera ready yet,” Vanessa scolds.

 

Brooke chuckles and tries to keep a grasp on Apollo, who’s wriggling to break free from her lap. “Just take the damn picture before he scratches the shit out of me, will you?”

 

It had been Vanessa’s idea that they spend the previous weekend traipsing around antique stores looking for old, quirky photo frames. Part of her one woman mission to make Brooke’s apartment seem more like a place where people live, and less like a cut out from a furniture catalogue. At first, Brooke had thought it was just an excuse for her to leave her shoes laying around, or her eyelash curler on the bathroom counter, but she quickly realised just how serious Vanessa is about her redesign.

 

There’s a gaudy magnet on the fridge from each one of the tourist hotspots that they’ve visited on their dates. There’s a pile of half used sketchbooks permanently on her dining room table, and copies of vogue on the end of the sofa. And now, there are eight new photo frames that need filling with pictures.

 

Vanessa insists on trying to take a photo of Brooke with the cats to fill one of the frames, even though they won't sit still, and every time they do Vanessa seems to be distracted by something different. But Brooke doesn’t complain, she lets her heart soar. Each time she finds another new item that’s somehow crept its way into the apartment without her having noticed, she wonders how the empty space that it now occupies had _ever_ been enough.

 

She notices the changes in herself, too.

 

Depression is cage, where you are somehow both the prisoner and the jailer. Therapy and medications and self care and endurance have given her the key, unlocked the gate and let it swing open. Vanessa is the one that is grabbing her by the hand, interlacing their fingers, and pulling her back into the world. Without her own personal recovery, Vanessa would be nothing more than a soft touch, caressing her through the slats in the bars. But without Vanessa, Brooke could go on staring at the opening indefinitely, with no outlet for her newfound freedom.

 

Her recovery feels more akin to an evolution than a sudden miracle, but it's enough. Its working. She’s growing and healing and eventually, she’s going to be okay again.

 

-x-

 

Brooke truly does have innocent intentions when she asks Vanessa to bring a folder from home to her office. She has a client briefing in the afternoon that she’s sinfully underprepared for, so it certainly is urgent. Her plan is to take the folder quickly, bitch to Vanessa about how she’s having a terrible day, then send her back home with instructions to order as much lingerie as she likes and charge it to Brooke’s account, by way of thanks.  

 

Or at least, that _was_ the plan, until Vanessa shows up in a delicate, flowing blouse and a dangerously short skirt and climbs right into Brooke’s lap like it’s her throne.

 

It’s easy enough to make Vanessa come whilst she works. Her fingers navigate Vanessa’s body with expertise, knowing exactly where and how to touch her to elicit a fountain of purrs and whiners and moans. The obscene, loud noise of Vanessa getting fucked reverberates off the office walls, as does the soft click of her mouse.

 

It’s much harder to concentrate, however, when her own skirt is hiked up to her waist, she has one heel propped on the edge of her desk and Vanessa’s teeth are grazing her inner thigh. One hand remains on her computer mouse, stubbornly maintaining the lie that she’s reading the words that she scroll past. The other hand is used to cup herself through her shirt, desperate for friction on her straining nipples.

 

When it’s over, she eventually has to tell Vanessa that she really does need to work, so she walks her back down to the buildings foyer with Vanessa’s fingers curled around her bicep, smirking as she whispers words of pure filth in Spanish on the journey.  

 

Nina is waiting for her when she gets back to her office.

 

“So, your mystery woman isn’t so mysterious anymore.”

 

Brooke blushes softly as the door clicks shut behind her.

 

“She’s pretty.”

 

“She’s gorgeous,” Brooke corrects.

 

“Twenty three? Twenty four?”

 

Brooke understands the implication. That Vanessa is some young, sexy, firecracker that Brooke is using to make herself feel ten years younger. That it’s some meaningless fling based on great sex and empty conversations.

 

“It isn’t like that.”

 

Nina’s eyes light up slightly. “Oh?”

 

And Brooke doesn’t know what possesses her to do it, because in their fifteen years of friendship, Nina has told her that trying to get her to talk about her feelings is like trying to draw blood from a stone. But she’s been holding back on saying it to Vanessa for so long that she’s utterly convinced that if she doesn’t tell _somebody,_ that she might spontaneously combust.

 

“I’m in love with her.”

 

“Oh, Brooke,” Nina sighs, eyes brimming with pride.

 

They go out for lunch with Nina and her long term girlfriend Monét the very next weekend and Vanessa integrates with Brooke’s world so seamlessly it’s as though there had always been an empty seat at the table for her.

 

Slowly but surely, Brooke is rebuilding the life that had been taken from her, once more.

 

-x-

 

Brooke plans countless different ways in which she’s going to tell Vanessa that she loves her. She prepares the words she’s going to day, and practices saying them without choking up. She thinks of romantic locations, only to change her mind when she realises that nowhere feels quite right. She tells herself that she’s making it overly complicated because you only get one chance to say _I love you_ for the very first time, and she wants to make it count. But of course she knows that the real reason she’s putting it off is because she’s terrified.

 

She’s not scared that Vanessa doesn’t love her back, because she knows without a doubt that she does. The problem is that their relationship has been dragging them at breakneck pace ever since their night in the diner two months ago. Brooke wouldn’t have had it any other way, but she’s worried that if they move too quickly they might risk losing what they have, and that’s not a risk she’s going to take lightly.

 

All of the planning and worrying and overthinking becomes redundant, on a nondescript Friday evening. Vanessa’s friends have just left after dinner, and Brooke’s heart is overflowing with gratitude and adoration for the woman that’s making her life seem so full again. A moment of sincerity turns to chasing each other around the apartment with hands full of soap bubbles, which turns to relentless tickling and screeching and laughing, which turns to bruising, needy kisses.

 

And suddenly, time stands still.

 

The words come tumbling out of Brooke’s mouth like a confession.

 

_“Vanessa, I love you. I love you. I’m in love with you. I love you.”_

 

Whispered, repeated on trembling breath.

 

And then Vanessa says it back and they’re laughing and kissing and brushing away each other’s tears to replace them with gentle touches and promises of forever.

 

Brooke swears that she could never love Vanessa more than she loves her right now.

 

And yet, she will love her more tomorrow.

 

-x-

 

The reason that Brooke doesn't like to talk about what happened to her isn’t that she’s afraid to relive it, because she does that every day. Every time she hears a noise over her shoulder that takes her off guard. Every time she twists her body at just the wrong angle and tugs uncomfortably on the tight scar tissue. Reliving that night is something she’s accustomed to.

 

Her problem is that she is terrified that once someone hears her story, they will realise that it was all her fault. She’d acted recklessly and brought the assault on to herself, thinking that it was more important to have the last word than to just hand over the watch and run. She doesn’t want anybody to know how stupid she’d been. And how she’d gotten exactly what she deserved.

 

But when Vanessa shakes her awake from a nightmare and pulls her close, to pet her hair and whisper muffled words of love against her temple, Brooke knows that she cant hold back any longer.

 

She speaks very matter of factly.

 

_This is a thing that happened to me. This is the reason why I am the way that I am. I can't change it, I can’t forget it, but I’m beginning to move on._

 

She tells Vanessa about how after the attack she’d taken a months leave from work to recover, but when she’d gone back, nothing was the same. She was marginally dissatisfied with her job before, now she detested it. She would stay at work late because of a sense of duty before, but afterwards, she’d done it because the only alternative was drowning herself in hard liquor. When she’d made an interns work life so miserable that he’d quit, that was when the board of directors urged her to take more time and see a therapist.

 

Over a year and a half of depression and misery which turned to recovery and hope, brings them to now.

 

Whilst Brooke speak about that night, Vanessa’s face grows paler. Her hands start to fidget. She opens her mouth to say something, but doesn't seem to find the words. It must be a jarring story to hear about someone you love, that’s Brooke’s only explanation for it. Brooke doesn’t cry, but Vanessa does. Tucked into Brooke’s shoulder, mumbling apologies and covering the scar with her palm.

 

-x-

 

Brooke knows there’s something wrong with Vanessa the moment she steps through the door. She’s had one of her favourite classes today, and it’s her night to pick the movie that they pretend to watch whilst they’re making out on the couch. She should be in a good mood, but instead, she walks through the door with a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

 

Brooke knows that look all too well. When you’re desperately trying to put on a brave face because you know that the moment someone asks you what’s wrong you’ll start crying and you won't be able to stop. She doesn’t try and get Vanessa to talk, or guess what’s wrong, or force her to do anything at all, she simply kisses her on the forehead and the cheek and the tip of her nose and asks her about her lunch with Yvie.

 

“It was fine. Everything is fine.”

 

She’s a terrible liar, but Brooke accepts her answer anyways.

 

Brooke pours Vanessa a glass of wine that sits untouched beside her, where she’s perched at the breakfast bar. Whilst she cooks, Brooke thinks back to all the times that she’d sat in silence during their phone calls, and how Vanessa would ramble about anything and everything to fill the void. It was oddly comforting, so Brooke gives it a try.

 

She tells Vanessa about how she’d picked out a different shape of pasta in the store on a whim because the packaging had an interesting design. Then she breaks off on a tangent about how she’d love to go to Italy to see the art and the architecture and the opera, even though she doesn't like the opera, she just thinks that sounds like something you should do in Italy.

 

Vanessa smiles and nods, but it’s very clear that she doesn’t want to be there. Brooke thinks its a true testament to her character that she’s here anyways, when she could’ve easily just stayed at home. She doesn’t eat her dinner and she doesn’t want ice cream, but when Brooke offers to call an uber for her to leave, she doesn't want that either.

 

Brooke is relieved when she’s finally ready to talk, but no words have the power to strike fear into a person more than a softly spoken _I need to tell you something._

 

“You can tell me anything,” she promises.

 

If Brooke had to guess what Vanessa was about to say, the words that tumble from her lips would be at the bottom of the list, right down there with saying that she’s leaving to join the first manned mission to Mars.

 

At first, the words don’t make sense. Until they do. And she realises what Vanessa is telling her.

 

Vanessa had seen someone getting assaulted in the street and done nothing. She hadn’t gone back. She hadn’t made sure she was okay. She called the cops and ran.

 

And it stuns Brooke into a deafening silence because that isn’t her Vanessa. Her Vanessa is empathetic and caring and warm and she takes care of people. She’s selfless, in all the right ways. Her Vanessa, the woman that has been her flicker of light in the darkness, she wouldn’t do that.

 

If Vanessa had been there, Brooke wouldn’t have felt so fucking alone. The thoughts rage around her mind, clattering and screaming, but never connecting. Never landing. Nothing sticks other than a blinding rage. She holds it in tightly, pulling her hand away from Vanessa, not letting her get close because she knows that she’s teetering on the edge off catastrophic destruction.

 

She’s spent years being angry at the world. Furious with the city. Resenting every single person who could’ve taken a different turn and ended up on the same street as her on that night, preventing the attack from happening, or at the very least, being there to tell her that she was going to survive when it did.

 

She’s about to tell Vanessa to stop shouting, when she realises its her. Brooke is the one that’s shouting. Blaming Vanessa for something that she couldn’t control. Making her cry. Her words are like a rolling freight train, she cant stop, she can’t slow down, she cant pull back.

 

Every ounce of bitterness and hatred is manifesting itself towards Vanessa and there’s nothing she can do to stop it.

 

Brooke feels as though she’s watching herself through the eyes of another as she gathers up Vanessa’s things and hurls them onto the bed. And there’s no way to describe how fucking inevitable it feels that she’s destroying her own life. It’s what she does best. She can try to hold it back, but she’s always going to be a powder keg about to explode when it comes to trying to hold onto anything good.

 

The harder she fights, pushing back against Vanessa’s pleading and apologies, the more she knows that she’s not going to be able to come back from this. She has dug her own grave with broken, bleeding fingers, and the only thing left to do is pull the rubble down on top of herself. Sealing her off from the life she’d dared to hope she could keep.

 

Vanessa leaves her things. She doesn't even take a jacket.

 

The door slams behind her, leaving Brooke alone in the dark.

 

-x-

 

After the assault, Brooke’s primary coping mechanism had been to break things. Glasses shattered against the wall of her kitchen. Pens snapped in half as she sat at her desk, because the ticking of the clock was driving her insane. She tore and smashed and cracked things beyond repair, finding comfort in the way that they to would never be whole again.

 

When Vanessa leaves, she waits for the urge to come. For the cataclysmic destruction to ensue. But it doesn’t.

 

She counts down from ten, over and over again until the anger dissipates. She’s grateful for her newfound ability to bring herself back from the brink, but utterly devastated when she realises that she could’ve done this sooner. She could have pulled herself back, instead of pushing away the woman that she loves. She’d screamed at Vanessa. Kicked her out of the apartment, which is only a home because Vanessa made it so. Kicked her out of the life that they’re starting to build.

 

Just for a moment, she’d slipped back into being the person she was before. The woman who pushes everyone away, guarding her heart with a fortress of harsh words and lies. But it’s hard to be that woman, when somebody is holding a chunk of your heart, so that when you push them away, they take it with them.

 

The worst part is that Vanessa was only doing what every other drunken twenty one year old kid would’ve done. She was scared, just as Brooke had been. And she’d thought she was doing the right thing. Thinking back to Vanessa’s reaction on the night that Brooke had told her, it seems so obvious that she’s been torturing herself with guilt for days and Brooke had made all her worst fears come true with her reaction.

 

During their night at the diner all those months ago, Brooke had sworn to herself that she would never hurt Vanessa. She’d never be a reason that she has to suffer, but she’s broken that promise. She’s hurt her, and if there’s even a chance that their relationship can be salvaged from this, she needs to take in.

 

Meticulously, Brooke sets each one of Vanessa’s belongings back in its place in the apartment, breathing life back into the already decaying space. She knows what she has to do, and the barrier that she’s going to have to overcome to get there, but for Vanessa, she would cross oceans. Crossing the city at night should be simple , in comparison.

 

-x-

 

She spends the cab journey to Vanessa’s apartment building chasing thoughts around her mind, trying to figure out how it's going to be possible to convey just how much she realises how badly she fucked up. Words won’t be enough. She’s going to have to prove to Vanessa that she loves her and treasures her and will never forgive herself for disgustingly misplaced anger.

 

As she steps out of the cab and into the dimly lit street, there only one thought on her mind. It isn’t fear or panic or dread.

 

It’s Vanessa.

 

The thought staves Brooke’s demons away.

 

She takes the stairs two at a time to get to her floor, but stops abruptly when she sees a woman sitting in the hallway. The woman has a dark hooded jumper pulled up over her head and sits with her back against one wall, lazily bouncing a tennis ball against the one adjacent to her. It takes Brooke a moment to realise that it’s Yvie.

 

“She called me on the way home from your apartment,” Yvie offers as explanation.

 

Brooke doesn’t have time to question how much she knows. Instead, she crosses the floor quickly, stepping over Yvie’s stretches out legs.

 

“She’s not going to answer,” Yvie tells her as she raises her knuckles to tap lightly on the door.

 

“She might if she knows it’s me.”

 

Four attempts of knocking and calling out to Vanessa proves Yvie right. Brooke wills herself not to cry as she takes a few steps backwards and runs her hand through her hair. The soft thunk of Yvie’s tennis ball hitting the wall, then the floor, followed by the cupping sound as she catches it with one hand, is the only thing keeping her grounded.

 

Until it stops.

 

“Sit down.” It’s a request, not a suggestion, so Brooke does.

 

Brooke sits across from Yvie, curing her legs up against her chest and wrapping them in her arms. It’s a stark contrast to the way Yvie lets her head rest back against the wall and stretches her limbs out casually. The silence hangs between them, until Yvie sighs.

 

“I was the one who convinced her to walk away, so if you want to be mad at someone, be mad at me.”

 

Brooke sighs. “I’m not mad.”

 

Yvie narrows her eyes.

 

“She cried for two days afterwards,” Yvie tells her. “She spent weeks looking at news reports trying to find the woman. Got this idea in her head that she had to apologise and make it right. Lie she was the one who’d committed the crime in the first place.”

 

Brooke wishes she would stop talking, but she doesn’t.

 

“We were so scared, Brooke. Vanessa was ready to run in there like a pit bull off the leash, but I held her back. I told her that in the grand scheme of things, a rich lady’s purse being stolen isn’t worth getting herself beaten into a coma over.”

 

She pauses and tosses the ball back and forth in her hands.

 

“We should’ve gonna back. We should’ve done more, but we didn’t and we have to live with that.” Tears start to brim in her eyes. “But for what it’s worth, I know that it wasn’t you.”

 

“How?”

 

She chuckles. “The universe is rarely so cruel.”

 

Yvie stands then offers Brooke her hand to help her up too. The two women pull one another into a tight embrace.

 

Yvie cries and tells Brooke that she’s sorry for what happened to her and for the mistake that she’d made. Brooke tells her that one mistake doesn't make her a bar person and that Vanessa is lucky to have her as a friend.

 

A small cough drags their attention back to the doorway.

 

“Oh, Ness,” Brooke sighs. She takes a step towards her but Vanessa meets her half way. Brooke holds Vanessa tighter than she’s ever held her before. She’s never, ever going to let her go again. Their apologies are drowned by tears. Brooke promises Vanessa that she loves her, over and over again until they’re the only words she knows how to say.

 

Yvie stays to check that Vanessa is okay, then with a final hug for both of them, leaves to go home and they are alone in one another’s company for the first time since Vanessa left.

 

“It’s dark outside,” Vanessa whispers, pressing their foreheads together.

 

“I had to see you,” Brooke tells her. “I have to bring you home.”

 

-x-

 

The sentiment behind Brooke telling Vanessa she wants to bring her home is powerful, but in reality they’re both exhausted and they know they have a long, draining conversation ahead of them, so they decide they’re going to stay in Vanessa’s apartment tonight.

 

They talk about their fight and what had gone wrong. The breakdown of communication and Brooke’s unwillingness to let Vanessa explain. Vanessa tells Brooke that she understands and that she doesn’t blame her, but that being kicked out of the apartment had felt as gut wrenchingly debilitating as losing a limb.

 

When it’s over, their tears dry and they’re ready to start moving forwards, Brooke leans in to kiss Vanessa, but Vanessa pulls away and grabs her by the hand.

 

“There’s somewhere I wanna to take you first.”

 

Vanessa grabs the blanket that is draped over the back of her couch and leads Brooke out of the apartment and up the buildings main stairs, higher and higher until they reach a fire escape, which Vanessa pushes open. On the building’s rooftop, Vanessa lays the blanket out beneath the stars.

 

“I was thinking about this for a while but a good time never came up. I thought being out on the roof would be a good way to help you get used to being out at night, without you having to worry bout anything. If you want to, that is.”

 

Brooke shudders. Partly from the cold and partly from the fear but mostly because she’s so hopelessly in love with Vanessa that it takes her breath away.

 

They sit on the blanket, Vanessa between Brooke’s legs, with her back against her chest. She tells Brooke to hold onto her and close her eyes and focus on the sounds of the city at night. Focus on the chill of the air around them. Then tells herself that she’s safe and protected and nothing can harm them whilst they’re in their own little world.

 

Brooke looks up at the sky, trying to catch a glimpse of a star. It’s magical. It’s perfect.

 

It’s Vanessa.

 

“You’re so beautiful,” Brooke whispers, watching as a soft amber glow illuminates Vanessa’s face. “So beautiful.”

 

“You aint supposed to be looking at me.”

 

Brooke wants to tell her that it’s impossible not to.

 

Vanessa turns in Brooke’s arms looking up at her with big doe eyes and presses their lips together. Gently at first, then pushes Brooke back into the blanket as the kiss deepens, the stars long forgotten. She kisses down Brooke’s jaw and her neck and Brooke arches her back when Vanessa starts to lift up her shirt. She shivers when her skin hits the open air, but Vanessa’s shower of kisses keeps her warm. A siren wails in the distance and Brooke’s body stiffens.

 

“Relax, baby. You’re safe. I’m here.”

 

It’s too cold to undress completely, so Vanessa slips her hand under the waistband of Brooke’s jeans. It shouldn’t be romantic. Half-dressed, semi-public fucking beneath the stars has no business being one of the most blissful experiences of Brooke’s life. Vanessa purrs words of encouragement into her ear. Telling her to let herself go. Let go of her anxieties. Free them with her moans.

 

So, she does.

 

She comes hard and fast and looks into Vanessa’s eyes as she does. Soft, glistening pools of light.

 

Deep enough to drown you.

 

Gentle enough to cleanse you.

 

Powerful enough to save you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter. 
> 
> Only one chapter left to go! 
> 
> HMU on tumblr if you’re in need of a support group cause you aren’t ready for this fic to end. (Cause same)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their own special take on happily ever after, told from the eyes of both Vanessa and Brooke.

**_Brooke_ **

 

The hall is packed from wall to wall with family members trying to catch a glimpse of their loved ones. Usually, Brooke can’t stand crowds. It makes her feel like the walls are closing in on her and that they’re can’t possibly be enough oxygen in the room for all these people, so she has to breathe deeply and heavily and hope that nobody notices. But today, she’s willing to put aside her aversions for Vanessa. 

 

The black and white striped pencil skirt she wears is digging uncomfortably against the skin at her waist, so she shifts back and forth in her chair, struggling to settle. Vanessa’s mom, who sits beside her, smiles warmly and Brooke feels a little of the tension leave her shoulders. This is her first time in a relationship that’s lasted enough to be introduced to the other woman’s parents, so naturally, she’s a little on edge. But after six months of being with Vanessa, Brooke really couldn’t delay meeting her mom for much longer. They haven’t had the chance to speak past hurried introductions, but she seems kind and comforting and Brooke can see where Vanessa gets her beauty from. 

 

The commencement speaker works his way through the list of names and degree titles as the graduates file across the stage to shake the dean’s hand and collect their certificates. Brooke is barely paying attention, until he gets to Vanessa’s name. And somehow, even though all the students are wearing the same blue cap and gown, Vanessa stands out, radiating glamour and inspiring awe with her leopard print heels, gold bangles, and flowing curls. 

 

In the year that has passed since Brooke first met Vanessa, on that lonely, desperate night in her office, Brooke has always known that she is different. Nobody that she has ever met will ever compare to her. She struts across the stage with purpose and flashes her mom and Brooke and gigantic smile as she notices them. Vanessa’s mom raises her hand to wipe away a tear and Brooke has never really been good at handling her own emotions, let alone other people’s, so maybe that’s why she leans in and softly and whispers  _ God, I love that smile.  _

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

The moment that the ceremony ends, Vanessa weaves through the crowds to find Booke. She’d seen her as she’d been on stage, beaming up at her from beside her mom and it had almost been enough to make her run to her there and then. 

 

Brooke is easy to find. She towers over most people around her and the light bounces off her large, glimmering, silver earrings. The moment their eyes lock, they’re grinning and laughing and crossing the short distance towards one another as quickly as is socially acceptable. Vanessa throws her arms around Brooke’s neck and is lifted clean off the ground, twirled around in a circle and held tightly.

 

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” Brooke whispers into her hair. 

 

When Brooke sets her back down, she straightens her graduation cap and blushes softly when she sees her mom watching them with pride. 

 

It’s almost imperceptible, but her mom glances at Brooke and nods softly. A nod that says, _ I approve.  _ Her mom has always been protective and, whilst she’s kind hearted, has always viewed Vanessa’s girlfriends with a sceptical eye. Nobody is ever good enough for her only daughter. But somehow, in the short amount of time that she’s been acquainted with Brooke, her mom just  _ knows.  _ And Vanessa understands completely, because the first time she’d met Brooke, she’d known too. 

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

Watching Vanessa and her mom walking together arm in arm, giggling like young girls, feels like a privileged moment. The bond between the two of them is something that’s clearly so powerful that for a moment, Brooke is envious. Her mom was a brilliant woman, but something in their relationship had always been lacking. She’d given Brooke the motivation and drive to get where she is in life, but had also cursed her with an inability to open up the vault in which she keeps her closely guarded emotions. But Brooke doesn’t resent Vanessa for having what she never had, because Vanessa deserves every good thing that this world has to offer. 

 

A slender arm drapes around her shoulders and for a moment she’s taken aback, until the soft scent of coconut tells her that it’s Yvie. 

 

“Are you bummed out that you’re not the only  _ mommy  _ around here today?” 

 

“You’re disgusting,” Brooke laughs, nudging Yvie away with her elbow. 

 

Yvie laughs as she does, loudly and uniquely, attracting the attention of everyone in their vicinity. Although, honestly, all eyes were on her before she’s started to make that sound. She’s fastened an array of green beads to end of her braids and decorated her graduation cap with a fringe of sequins, but all that seems tame in comparison to the gaudy, mutlicoulored makeup plastered around her eyes. On any other student, Brooke would assume the styling choice to be a political statement about standing out amongst a sea of blank graduates, but on Yvie, it’s just  _ Yvie.  _

 

“Have you asked her yet?”

 

Brooke whips her face around to Yvie and shoots her a glare. “Keep your voice down,” she hisses. “You know the plan is to ask her when we get back to the apartment.”

 

Yvie laughs again, but thankfully, a little softer this time. “I know, you’ve only told me like forty five times. I wasn’t talking about her, I meant have you asked her mom.”

 

Brooke’s eyebrows furrow for a moment because that isn’t even something she’s considered. Vanessa really isn’t the type to seek anyone’s approval for the decisions she makes. She acts on impulse and thinks with her heart and if anyone were to tell her not to do something, odds are it would make her want to do it more. 

 

“Um- I wasn’t planning on it. Don’t you think it’s a little old fashioned? She’s a grown woman.”

 

Yvie shrugs. “Maybe. But Vanj’ likes that type of old hollywood romance shit. And it might earn you some brownie points with her mom if you show that you’ve thought about her.”

 

Brooke hates Yvie for being right, because this isn’t part of the plan. She’d thought about every aspect of this day for a month. Last minute changes are not something she needs to contend with. But in her heart she knows it’s the right thing to do, so when they’re out for lunch and cocktails and Vanessa leaves them alone when she leaves for the bathroom, Brooke tells her mom what she’s planning. 

 

Is isn’t really a question of  _ can I do this,  _ but more one of  _ please say I have your motherly approval because this is what I’m doing tonight.  _ She holds her breath in anticipation, then breathes of a gentle sigh of relief when Vanessa’s mom nods and smiles and tells her that it’s a wonderful idea, but that she hopes she knows what she’s getting herself in for. 

 

Brooke tells her that she knows. And she’s never been more ready. 

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

The front door of Brooke’s apartment has barley closed behind them before Vanessa is standing on her toes and pulling Brooke into a bruising kiss. Maybe it’s because she’s still riding a high from graduation, or maybe it’s because the skirt Brooke’s wearing makes her look like some type of sexy beetlejuice cosplayer, but if they aren’t fucking within the next four seconds, Vanessa is going to combust. 

 

“Slow down baby, I have something for you first,” Brooke tells her between kisses. 

 

Vanessa grins, because of course Brooke bought her a present even though she’d told her not to, but the surge in her heart only makes her crave Brooke more. She whimpers against Brooke’s lips, but Brooke pulls back and rests their foreheads together. 

 

“Please, Ness.”

 

There’s an emotion in Brooke’s voice that she can’t quite place. Anticipation, maybe? She wants to tell her that she’s sure whatever gift she’s bought is going to be perfect and thoughtful but way too expensive and something she doesn’t deserve, so there’s nothing for her to worry about. But Brooke cups her face in both hands and whispers  _ please  _ again, and the thoughts fall Vanessa mind like a blossom from a cherry tree. 

 

Vanessa tries to suppress the urge to have Brooke push her up against every flat surface they pass as she guides her by the hand through the apartment. She feels a shiver of excitement as they draw closer to the bedroom, but huffs in frustration when they reach the door and keep walking, coming to a stop outside the door to the spare room. This is the one room in Brooke’s apartment that Vanessa has never had reason to go in, only peaking in a handful of times out of curiosity, or for the fresh sheets that Brooke stores in the closet. 

 

Vanessa is about to reach for the handle when Brooke’s hand covers her. 

 

“Before we go in, I just want you to know that you don’t have to try and give me the reaction that you think I want. Just know that I love you, no matter how this goes.”

 

She speaks softly, looking vulnerable and afraid. She stands tall over Vanessa, bus she’s trying her best to minimise the difference. She’s saying,  _ I’m ready for this to not go down the way I’d planned, because last time I thought I was being romantic by giving you an envelope full of cash and you tore me to shreds.  _

 

And Vanessa starts to feel on edge, but then Brooke’s hand over hers starts to close around the door handle and they push open the door together and Vanessa knows that whatever happens next, they’ll do that together too. 

 

It takes Vanessa a moment to realise what she’s looking at. All of the furniture in the room is gone, replaced with a large desk in the centre of the room. She glances at Brooke, who’s radiating with anxious anticipation, then back at the room. Which is when starts to notice the finer details. Wall to wall shelving, with a variety of baskets and drawers and empty spaces. A free standing clothing rail. Two dressmakers mannequins. A smaller desk beneath the window with a sewing machine still in its packaging. 

 

“Brooke?” Vanessa questions softly in disbelief as she steps into the room. Tears pick at the corner of her eyes and she raises her hand to cover her mouth. 

 

“If you think it’s too much I can send it all back tomorrow.”

 

The tears start to fall and Vanessa can’t decide whether to step further into the room or throw herself into Brooke’s arms, but then the decision is taken from her as Brooke’s hand on her lower back guides her forwards. 

 

In the run up to her graduation, Vanessa struggled to find a job. Nothing she’s seen had felt right. She didn’t want to take an unpaid job interning for some shitty, hipster startup company. She didn’t want to work for another designer and have their name appear on the things that she makes. Everything she creates, she does with love and precision and uniqueness and she’s desperate to maintain that for as long as she can. She’d told Brooke that her apartment is way too small for anything other than the sewing machine crammed on her coffee table amongst various other tools, so she might have to start looking to rent a desk in a studio, and Brooke had casually offered the use of her spare bedroom as a workspace. 

 

But Vanessa didn't think she was serious, let alone that she would actually do  _ this.  _

 

“This is-“ Vanessa starts, but the words fall short. Because how could she possibly put into words what this is. 

 

_ This is the most romantic, thoughtful, craziest, insanely perfect thing that anyone has ever done for me. I feel like if I try to touch anything my fingers will pass straight through it because there’s no fucking way that any of this is real.  _

 

“Brooke I don’t know what to say.”

 

“Oh. It’s okay if you don’t-“

 

“I love it.” 

 

She turns back around to face Brooke and pulls her into a tight embrace. Mumbling over and over again into her chest that she loves it and she loves her and she can’t believe she’s managed to get all of this stuff into the apartment without her noticing. Brooke tells her that it was surprisingly easy, but that keeping it a secret till graduation day had been torture, then she detangles their limbs and encourages Vanessa to keep looking around. 

 

Brooke is riddled with self doubt, so every time Vanessa opens a drawer to see various buttons and zippers and fascinators, Brooke tells her that it’s okay if she doesn’t like them. Vanessa swats her arm playfully and tells her that she loves it all. She wants to ask how much all of this cost, but she knows two things. One, that Brooke is going to give some type of evasive answer to avoid saying the real amount, and two, what whatever that amount is, she’s going to feel guilty. So, she decides to leave the conversation about money for a later date. 

 

Vanessa opens a jar which contains an assortment of buttons, each with various depictions of a snake. Or multiple shakes. She takes one look at the jar and asks Brooke if this is Yvie’s doing, and Brooke tells her that if it weren’t for Yvie then she wouldn’t have known where to find half of this stuff, so when Yvie had requested her own personal flourish be left in the space, Brooke couldn’t say no. 

 

“You know,” Vanessa tells Brooke as she stands on her tiptoes to take down a box of dainty looking beads from a high shelf, “you aint ever gonna be able to get rid of me now that you’ve done this. Imma be in your apartment all hours of the damn day, I’ll never want to go home.”

 

Brooke chuckles slightly. “Then maybe you shouldn’t?”

 

Vanessa turns round and Brooke is holding her outstretched palm towards her. She recognises the key in an instant, from all the times that she’s let herself into the apartment whilst Brooke has worked late. Expect, instead of being on Brooke’s clustered keychain, it’s alone. A solitary key with a heart shaped keyring attached. 

 

Her breath hitches and the tears start to brim again before Brooke has even opened her mouth. “Are you asking me to-“ she can’t finish the question. 

 

“Move in with me,” Brooke finishes. “I want you to live here. I want your face to be the first thing I see in the morning and the last thing I see before I go to bed. I want to make you pancakes in the mornings and go grocery shopping and pick out paint swatches. I want this to be our home, and you can say no if you want, but-“

 

“Brooke, I want that too.”

 

There’s more tears and laughter and hugging and relentless kisses. And later, when they’re curled up in bed, naked and sweaty, Vanessa cuddles up into Brooke’s side and holds on as tightly as Brooke will allow. Some people might say it’s too soon for such a significant step, but neither of them are the type to do anything by halves. Their relationship is intense. The laughter is intense and the fights are intense and the sex is intense, too. But Vanessa would rather take the all consuming, burning passion than settle for anything less. Because after all, their love is not a pastime, but a magnificent privilege.

 

Maybe they’ll work out in the long run and maybe they wont, but either way, it’s going to be one hell of a ride. 

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

Brooke wonders how it’s possible for Vanessa’s tiny, one bedroom apartment to have contained so many things. The cats are having a field day with the maze of cardboard boxes, meanwhile Brooke can barely take a step without tripping over something or other. She adores it. She wouldn’t have it any other way. 

 

It’s so befitting of Vanessa that her things somehow seem to expand into the space that they’re in, filling the area with personality and light. To Brooke, it feels like a different place entirely. For the past six months, Vanessa had been creeping into the previously empty shell of an apartment. Making a house a home. And now, she’s succeeded. She’s made it  _ their  _ home. 

 

There are some sacrifices that have to be made. Brooke’s pristine, organised kitchen cabinets are filled with a quirky mismatch of mugs and novelty shot glasses. The luxurious, Persian silk rug in her lounge is replaced by Vanessa’s fluffy white one, because it feels so much better beneath their feet. One thing that Brooke will not compromise on is Vanessa’s couch. It’s probably one of the most comfortable pieces of furniture in the world, and they’ve spent many enjoyable hours making out on the worn old cushions, but there’s one problem. It’s hideous. 

 

Vanessa pouts when Brooke tells her that under no circumstances will it be staying in their living room, so Brooke painstakingly rearranges all of the furniture in the spare room so that it can stay in there, which she hopes is compromise enough. 

 

“You’d better not forget about us now that you’re all domestic and shit,” Akeria teases Vanessa. 

 

Vanessa rolls her eyes. “Bitch, please, you know you’re gonna be ‘round here every chance you get.”

 

“And Brooke, you’d better not turn our Vanjie girl into no damn housewife.”

 

Brooke laughs aloud at the thought of Vanessa doing the cooking and the cleaning whilst wearing a dainty little sundress and a bow in her hair, looking like a pinup girl. It would be far more likely to come home to find Vanessa in the middle of some haphazard DIY project than it would be to see her with a tray of freshly baked brownies. Vanessa is many things, but a domestic goddess she is not. 

 

The three of them sit in the living room, slotted in amongst the remainder of Vanessa’s things that haven’t yet found a home. Yvie and Scarlett are supposedly grabbing more beers for the group, but it’s taken them so long that Vanessa has already yelled at them twice to stop making out in her  _ fancy ass kitchen.  _ Then Nina and Monet arrive to join the impromptu celebration of Vanessa’s moving day, and Brooke’s life has never felt so full. 

 

They order way too much pizza and get a little too drunk and it’s perfect. Nina tells Vanessa every embarrassing story about Brooke from their time at Harvard, like the time that she’d drunkenly told a room full of their classmates at a party that she was going to drop out of law school and become a ballerina, then pirouetted herself right into urgent care with a fractured ankle.  They stay up well into the night, until Nina and Monét leave and Vanessa’s friends decide to crash on the couches. 

 

Brooke is glad that the apartment has thick walls when they go to bed in the early hours of the morning and she fucks Vanessa into the mattress, as their own form of celebration. Afterwards, they lay together, tangled in the sheets of their bed, happy and warm and content. Brooke looks over at Vanessa and tries not to cry when she thinks about how a little over a year ago she would stare at her mobile on the pillow beside her and try to picture her laying there instead.

 

Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe it isn’t, but Brooke sleeps better that night than she thinks she has in her life.

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

Brooke starts to work less once they move in together. It’s gradual at first. She starts to make sure she leaves the office by 5pm every night, then cuts down to working just four days a week, then three. After a couple of months in the new routine, she finishes the last of her sleeping pills and decides not to renew the prescription. The change that occurs in her with just a small change is astonishing. All the tension and anguish that she carries in her shoulders dissipates. The almost forlorn look in her eye every time she leaves the apartment in the morning is replaced by a look of readiness. Vanessa has never known the Brooke that actually enjoys her job, but she’s more than ready to become acquainted. 

 

Last week, Brooke had casually asked Vanessa if she wanted to go to a rooftop barbecue at the apartment of a colleague of hers, and for a moment, Vanessa had assumed she was joking. Because it’s so unlike the Brooke that she knows. But the magical thing about falling in love with someone at their worst, is that you get to keep on loving them when they start to become themselves again. 

 

There are versions of Brooke that will always be Brooke. The perfectionist, who insists on spending the best part of an hour trying to pick out the ideal fruit basket to bring to the host and her wife. The over analyser, that can’t work out whether ‘starts at four’ means they should get there  _ at  _ four. Vanessa has never been one for adhering to social etiquette, so she defers to Nina for that particular dilemma. But in addition, there are the new versions of Brooke that Vanessa gets to experience for the first time. Like the version with a little whimsy, who wears purple eyeshadow and a chiffon flowing skirt that fans out when she shakes her hips. 

 

Vanessa loves each version equally. Every single component to her complex, perfectly unique, constantly astounding girlfriend. 

 

In the cab on the way to the barbecue, Brooke slips her hand into Vanessa’s and scoots closer to rest her head on her shoulder, even though she has to dip low due to the height difference. Vanessa grins and shuffles closer. 

 

“What’s this for?”

 

“Nothing. I just love you.”

 

Vanessa knows that Brooke is nervous about seeing a colleague other than Nina outside of the office for the first time since she was in her early twenties, so she rubs soothing circles on the back of her hand and kisses the top of her head. 

 

Vanessa squeezes Brooke’s hand tightly as they knock on the door to the apartment where the party is being held, but Brooke doesn’t have time to be anxious for long as the door is thrown open and a woman with gigantic round sunglasses and a pitcher full of some type of pink cocktail is greeting them with a smile. 

 

“Katya,” she yells loudly, “the tall lesbian and her hot girlfriend are here.”

 

Vanessas’s eyebrows wrinkle in confusion, briefly, until she looks at Brooke and sees her smiling. 

 

“Ness, this is Trixie. Katya’s wife.”

 

They’re shown up to the rooftop patio in a flurry of greetings and introductions, and Vanessa is glad when she sees Nina and Monet, just so that she doesn’t have to say  _ hi I’m Vanessa, it’s lovely to meet you, _ for the time being. 

 

The difference in the way that Brooke’s colleagues act around her now, in comparison with the way they’d acted the first time Vanessa had visited her office, is astounding. She’s still treated with respect and admiration, but there isn’t a trace of fear. She still manages to command a room without trying, which is something that Vanessa doesn’t think Brooke could ever grow out of, but she jokes with the rest of the party guests, chuckling at office gossip and beaming from ear to ear. 

 

When Brooke leaves to refill their drinks, Katya, the host, takes a break from monitoring the grill to introduce herself to Vanessa properly. Her voice is warm, with the gentle purr of an accent that Vanessa can’t quite place, as she asks Vanessa what her secret is.

 

“I don’t got any secrets.”

 

“You must do. How else is it possible that in less than a year, you’ve turned one of the coldest, most stuck up bitches I know into this?”

 

She gestures to Brooke, who’s taken a detour from filling up their drinks to collect empty plates and stack them neatly in the sink. She has a soft smile on her face, like there’s nothing in the world she would rather be doing. 

 

Vanessa wants to tell Katya that she hasn’t done anything. Brooke has brought herself out of the darkness all by herself, Vanessa has just been there for the ride. But that seems like too real of an answer to give in a situation like this. 

 

“What can I say,” Vanessa laughs, “she just loves to do the dishes.”

 

Katya flashes her a smile that’s full of understanding, but is prevented from replying when Trixie walks by and drapes an arm over her shoulder. 

 

“Oh babe, were you asking Vanessa to ask Brooke about the four-way we talked about?”

 

Katya’s mouth hangs agape momentarily, then she raises her hand to her mouth as her lips curl up into a grin and she shakes her head.

 

“You are such an asshole. I hate you,” Katya laughs loudly, waving the barbecue tongs in her hand in Trixie’s direction until she screeches and runs away. Once the laughter has died down, Katya extends an invitation for Vanessa and Brooke to come round for dinner, since her and Trixie’s combined  _ uniqueness  _ has managed to scare off the last two couples they used to double date with. Vanessa accepts gratefully, since she’s never been one to shy away from people who are different. 

 

Late in the evening, when the sun dips low in the sky and the party is moved indoors to stave off the chill, Vanessa takes out her phone to order them an uber home, but Brooke’s fingertips graze her wrist as she does. 

 

“Maybe we could just stay for half an hour more?”

 

If they leave it any later, it will definitely be dark by the time they get home. Vanessa knows this, and she knows that Brooke knows it too. Brooke has been comfortable with rooftop dates beneath the stars for a long time now, but they’ve never ventured into the darkness outside of their apartment building before now. For most couples, and extra half hour at a party wouldn’t mean anything, but this isn’t a decision she wants Brooke to take lightly. 

 

“You’re sure?”

 

Brooke clicks the lock button on Vanessa’s phone and squeezes her hand gently. 

 

“I’m sure.”

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

One thing that Brooke has always been is financially stable. Ever since she qualified, her monthly cheques have climbed, as has the size of her savings account. Her Christmas bonus would be enough to pay some people’s rent for a year. But cutting down her working week to half as many hours has had a similar effect on her income. She still earns more than enough to give herself and Vanessa a comfortable lifestyle, but she can’t afford to be as frivolous as they had been before. 

 

Something that catches her entirely by surprise is when Vanessa starts to earn more. Brooke is beyond proud of her when the online, outerwear boutique she runs from the spare room of their apartment starts picking up traction on instagram. Vanessa is so busy with orders that Brooke suggests it’s time to expand out of her small workspace, but she insists that she isn’t ready just yet. Nevertheless, despite the possible limitations of a smaller studio, Vanessa’s sales start to increase significantly. 

 

And as overcome with pride that Brooke is, she can’t seem to stave off the ensuing insecurity. 

 

Brooke knows that she’s not Vanessa’s caretaker - they’re equals in every way - but something about being the main provider in their relationship makes her feel right. She enjoys treating Vanessa to as much as she can get away with. There’s a small thrill every time they go out to an expensive restaurant and Brooke tells her not to bring her purse. Or when she takes her into a high end store and tells her to pick whatever she wants. It makes Brooke feel like she’s spoiling Vanessa in the way that all beautiful things are supposed to be. 

 

So, when Vanessa starts to come home with her own reciprocal gifts for Brooke. Expensive jewels and luxury perfumes and a very nice watch. When she books them a weekend in a spa retreat upstate, just for the hell of it. That’s when Brooke starts to feel unhinged. 

 

The insecurity manifests itself in different ways, each of them a thinly veiled attempt to show Vanessa how much she wants to provide for her, to make her life comfortable. She learns how to make a variety of Puerto Rican dishes from scratch, because Vanessa talks about how much she loved it when her grandmother made them. She makes sure the housework is done before Vanessa can lift a finger. And she regularly spends the best part of an evening eating her out like her last meal, until her clit is swollen and she’s a dishevelled, panting, puddle on the couch. Or the rug. Or the kitchen counter. 

 

But Brooke realises that she isn’t as good as hiding her intentions as she thinks she is, when Vanessa comments on the cuteness of a puppy in the park, and Brooke offers to buy her one on the spot.

 

“Are you for real?”

 

Brooke shrugs. “If you want a puppy, I’ll get you a puppy.”

 

Vanessa’s face contorts slightly, then settles into a look of pointed skepticism. “Okay, what game you playin’, Mami?”

 

“There’s no game. I just-“

 

“You just wanna try and think of everything I want before I even know that I want it.”

 

Brooke sighs and suggests they sit down on a bench to have this conversation. She tells Vanessa that she’s worried that it makes her a bad girlfriend if she can’t provide for Vanessa, and since Vanessa is earning enough to be able to buy herself whatever she likes, Brooke has to try and provide for her in alternative ways. 

 

“You know what you can do if you really wanna provide for me?”

 

“What?”

 

Vanessa tells Brooke that what she really needs, more than being spoiled with gifts and housework and puppies, is for Brooke to help her with her business. The designing and promoting part, she has down, but she’s terrible with her finances. She can’t keep track of invoices and she’s terrible at saving money - she’s spending it way quicker than she’s bringing it in. She teases Brooke about being a  _ real professional business woman  _ when she starts to talk about getting an accountant or a financial advisor. They decide that their first step will be to go through Vanessa’s finances together when they get home. 

 

“Maybe once I get all these coins in order we could get one of those couples bank typa situations?”

 

Brooke chuckles, “you mean a joint savings account?”

 

Then, Vanessa laughs too. 

 

“What’s so funny.”

 

“Nothing,” she grins. “It just sounds very grown up when you put it like that.”

 

Brooke blushes softly. “Sorry if I took the fun out of it.”

 

“No, no,” Vanessa tells her quickly. “I like it. Makes me feel all lady like and mature and shit.”

 

Brooke teases Vanessa that they’re far from mature, and tickles her ribs to prove her point. But she agrees that the joint account is something that she would very much like to do, so that they can save up for things together.

 

Later that evening, when they’re sitting at their dining room table, trying to untangle the mess that is Vanessa’s heap of financial documents, Brooke realises that she’d got it all wrong when she’d been trying to provide for Vanessa. Sure, it makes her feel good to do nice things for her and she’s not going to stop that entirely, it just isn’t going to be her main focus. Her main focus from now on is going to be supporting Vanessa. Encouraging her and cherishing her and spurring her onwards as she continues to succeed. Maybe one day her income will far surpass Brooke’s, but that doesn’t matter. They’re a team. 

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

“You got your passport?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You got bear spray?”

 

“I don’t think they have many bears in Arizona.”

 

Vanessa furrows her brow and tugs her bottom lip between her teeth in a way that she hopes says  _ I don’t care if there's just one goddamn bear in Arizona, it’s enough. Buy the damn spray.  _

 

“Would it make you feel better if I promise to buy bear spray at the airport?”

 

She nods. 

 

Brooke’s trip seems to be bringing out an anxious, overthinking side of Vanessa that had been hidden before, which is funny because she knows that if she were the one taking a solo trip instead of the other way around, she’s turn up at the airport with a toothbrush and a spare pair of panties and a fuck it type of attitude. But since it’s Brooke, Vanessa has triple checked the flight time and her hotel booking and tried to anticipate and plan for every possible thing that could go wrong. She hasn’t told Brooke, but she has delayed all of her orders by a week in case for some reason she needs to haul ass across the country and bring her baby home.  

 

“This will be the longest we’ve been apart since we met in the diner,” Brooke tells her, softly tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.  

 

She’s worried about that too. 

 

About waking up in their bed without the tickle of Brooke’s hair against her cheek. Or Brooke’s feet that are somehow always freezing and  _ always  _ pressed into her shins. Brooke won’t even have phone service for most of her time away, so really, the more actuate thing to say would be ‘this will be the longest we’ve gone without hearing each other’s voices since the first night you called me a year and a half ago’. But Vanessa doesn’t say that, she tells Brooke that she’s going to miss her the most when she has to do her own dishes, earning her a playful swat on the arm. She also tells Brooke to check her phone, because she  _ may  _ have taken some racy photographs on there, to keep her warm at night. 

 

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but Vanessa thinks that’s bullshit. Because there’s no way that her heart is getting any fonder than it is right now. 

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

When Brooke had first moved to America as a little girl, one of the first things she’d learnt about was the Grand Canyon. An unparalleled natural wonder. Stretching expanses. Plugging depths. The one thing about it that resonates with Brooke the most is that you can’t see all of it at once. You can climb and traverse and explore, but still, there will be parts of the Canyon that you never get to see. The Canyon keeps parts of herself hidden and Brooke appreciates that. 

 

From the moment she steps through security at the airport and out of Vanessa’s comforting air of effortless reassurance, the anxiety creeps in. Everyone in the airport lounge wants to plant drugs in her case, or force her onto a flight to Europe and harvest her organs or make her sick with their uncovered sneezes. But she perseveres. 

 

Her therapist recommended that she do something monumental to mark the end of her sessions. Something that feels like a celebration. A launchpad upon which she can step off into her new life as a  _ changed  _ woman. Brooke hadn’t been overly thrilled with the idea, thinking it sounded a little gimmicky, but Vanessa, of course, had started thinking up ideas from the moment she’d told her. 

 

Vanessa suggested a month in Asia. Brooke suggested they go out for Thai food. Vanessa suggested getting a tattoo. Brooke suggested a new pair of earrings. 

 

Brooke said she’s always wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Vanessa suggested that she go alone. 

 

Vanessa has an idea in her head that Brooke is going to go hiking and exploring and have some kind of earth shattering epiphany, or find her inner peace. That maybe she’ll come back with braids in her hair and sandals on her feet and a copy of Live Laugh Love in her back pocket. So, Brooke agrees. Mainly because she loves Vanessa, but maybe a tiny part of her hopes something like that will happen too. 

 

Despite her newfound independence however, the first thing Brooke does when she reaches her hotel room is call Vanessa, because for the next five days she isn’t going to have cell service and she wants to make the most out of the little time she has left. Vanessa squeals with excitement when the call connects, and has told Brooke about the cats and what she’s had for dinner and how bored she is before Brooke has even taken a breath. 

 

“So,” Vanessa says, and Brooke can practically hear the smirk on her face. “What are you wearing?” she purrs seductively. 

 

“Unbelievable,” Brooke laughs, shaking her head. “I’m wearing exactly what I was when you dropped me off a few hours ago.”

 

She groans in frustration. “Come on, Brookie, you can do better than that.”

 

“You want me to tell you about the comfy cotton panties I wore to travel in, baby?” Brooke teases coyly, and Vanessa groans in frustration. 

 

But the teasing doesn’t last for long and they slip back into their old ways easily enough. Fucking over the phone like horny teenagers. Moaning like porn stars to emphasise their pent up desires. Like they’ve fallen back in time and Vanessa is Vanjie the sex hotline operator, and Brooke is a lonely, bitter mess again. But they aren’t those people anymore. They’re together and stronger and they’ve changed for the better. 

 

At the end of the call, she wraps herself up tightly in the hotel robe and steps out onto the hotel balcony. It’s quiet here in comparison to New York, almost unnervingly so. Brooke knows that Vanessa would love to be here, listening to the crickets instead of the hum of the City. But she isn’t here. Brooke is alone and that’s okay. 

 

-x-

 

The trek to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back takes four nights and five days, and the first thing that Brooke realises is that it’s forcing her to be more social. She decided to join on to one of the guides tours, as Vanessa would just about lose her mind if she attempted to do this comepley alone, but there’s something about a guided hiking tour that seems to make complete strangers want to tell Brooke their life story. Since she has to sleep in a tent ten feet away from these people, she decides it’s best to cooperate and accepts the chatter, but quickly realises it’s actually very interesting. 

 

She gets to know a couple in their late fifties who never had any children and now they get to go on vacation four times a year instead of worrying about their kids tuition fees. There’s a pair of sisters from Hong Kong who are exploring America after their grandfather passed away and left them a large chunk of money to see the world. And there’s a few other solo travellers too, which makes Brooke feel more at ease. 

 

On their first night, they sit around a campfire, everyone exhausted and aching from their first day on the trail. Silently, one by one, the infinite expanse of stars begin to blossom in the sky. The stars are too awe inspiring to be fearful of the night. A shooting star flies overhead. Then another and another. More than Brooke can keep track of. But she doesn’t wish for a thing. 

 

The rest of the expedition passes in an exhilarating blur of high plateaus. The strength of moving waters, carving up the land. The simplicity of the sand and the grass beneath her feet. The silence of internal growth. When they reach the midpoint of the trip, arriving at one of the lowest accessible points of the Canyon, Brooke feels serene. Because you have to reach the bottom before you can start the climb back up to the top. And she’s been giving it everything she’s got, but in her own life, she’s on the upwards climb once more. 

 

She cries, briefly, then wipes away her tears and sucks in a deep breath and asks the tour guide to take a photo of her to send to Vanessa when they’re back within cell range. Because the best part about this whole experience - the freedom and the escape from the city and the openness - is that none of this is permanent. In a few days she’ll get to go home to the woman of her dreams. Before long, this trip will become nothing more than a splintered image in an out of focus kaleidoscope. A memory to view with affection as the details become hazy and weak. But it doesn’t matter, because even just the smallest reminder that when she removes all of the variables in her life, she can still be  _ Brooke _ , is enough.

 

Maybe this trip hasn’t changed her life. Maybe it isn’t the soul-awakening experience of a travel-bloggers wet dream. But it’s exactly the self esteem boost that she needs. A reminder of everything that she’s capable of. She can take care of herself. She can be alone with her thoughts. She thrives when she’s with Vanessa, but she’s also capable of shining all by herself.

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

Vanessa doesn’t mean to find it. 

 

She’s not actively looking for it. She couldn’t have been, she didn’t even know it existed. Or, no, that’s not strictly accurate. She’s known that it existed since she was a little girl. It’s the fact that it’s sitting in Brooke’s jewellery box that knocks the air out of her lungs. 

 

Brooke has been away on her trip for two days when her friends come to the apartment to get ready for a much needed night on the town. Liquor flows like water and they’re trying on various dresses, making a mess of the bedroom with halfhearted promises to tidy up the following day. Vanessa has settled on a blue and orange sequined jersey dress, but can’t find a necklace that works, so decides to see if Brooke has anything hidden away that she could borrow. 

 

As soon as she opens Brooke’s jewellery box, she knows that everything Brooke owns is going to be far too expensive and dainty to go with her ratchet-couture dress, since everything comes in its own little box. Her earrings are the real classy type, not the ones that come on a piece of cardboard on a rack at the mall. The necklaces look like they come from the vaults of Cartier. And she doesn’t know why, but one box looks different from the rest, so she decides to take it out. It’s older and a little worn at the edges and something about it just means Vanessa knows it doesn’t belong.

 

So, she opens it. And it takes her breath away.

 

It’s her abuela’s ring. The ring that her grandfather had given her and she’d worn every day from that moment until the day that she died. The ring that Vanessa would gaze at as a child, because in the right light, the sun would glint off of the black sapphire and cast an array of shimmers on the wall. The ring that Vanessa assumed had been packed up and stored in her mom's apartment with the rest of the sentimental items that they’d brought home from Puerto Rico after the funeral. Except it isn’t with her mom, it’s right here in her apartment. In Brooke’s jewellery box. 

 

“You alright, Vanj?” Scarlet asks, nudging her shoulder from behind. Vanessa snaps the ring box quickly shut, but not quick enough. “Fuck, is that what I think it is?” she says softly.

 

“I think so,” Vanessa tells her, slightly stunned and equally as soft. 

 

There are a billion thoughts whirring around Vanessa’s mind, rolling with the alcohol to create a cocktail of confusion and excitement and exhilaration. A tender moment of eye contact with Scarlet conveys the desire that this stays between them, and Scarlet nods in understanding, then pours her another shot of tequila because, fuck, she needs it. Later that night, they’re drunk and crying in the bathroom of the club and Scarlet tells her that she’s been routing for this relationship ever since Vanessa had told them about Brooke over a year and a half ago. It’s a lie, since out of the group Scarlet had been the last to warm up to Brooke, but she appreciates the sentiment. And she drunkenly agrees when Scarlet demands she be a bridesmaid in exchange for keeping a secret from Yvie.

 

When she stumbles back into the apartment in the early hours of the morning, she takes out the ring once more. Imagines Brooke sliding it onto her finger with promises of forever. The thought forms a lump in her throat. Part of Vanessa worries that it’s too soon. They’ve only been together for a year and, whilst it’s been the best year of her life, there aren’t many people that would encourage getting engaged after such a short amount of time. Not when they’re still growing together and learning new things about each other. 

 

And yet, if Brooke has this ring it means she’s asked her mom about it. She’s gone out of her way to make plans for an engagement that’s personal and deeply meaningful and it should be everything that Vanessa wants, but something about it doesn’t sit right with her. All she wants to do is talk to Brooke about it, but she won’t be back from her trip for another few days and even when she is back, Vanessa doesn’t know how she would even begin to tell Brooke what’s on her mind.

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

Throughout the past year of their relationship, Brooke has realised that Vanessa very rarely lies. Most of the time, it’s because she doesn’t feel the need to. She lives her life like an unbound book and holding things back is never something she’s had the desire, nor ability, to do. But the other reason that Vanessa doesn’t lie is that she holds secrets like a sieve holds water. It’s like she has a physical incapability to hold anything inside. When they’d tried to hold a surprise party for Akeria’s birthday, Vanessa had given away the game within days of the idea being formed. 

 

So, when Brooke gets home from her trip and Vanessa is skittish from the moment she walks through the door, she knows somethings up. 

 

At first, Brooke assumes that Vanessa has broken something whilst she’s been in the apartment alone. Maybe she’s ruined a bunch of white laundry with a red sock. Or maybe she’s dropped another one of the fine china plates. Either way, there’s something that Vanessa is holding back. 

 

She asks about Brooke’s trip and listens with enthusiasm, but in the slight lulls of the conversation, she tugs her lower lip between her teeth and chews on it anxiously. She chips at the navy blue nail polish on her thumbs, sending small flecks of paint over the couch. The fretting seems to subside when she climbs into Brooke’s lap and kisses her thoroughly for the first time since she’s been away. 

 

As Brooke carries her to the bedroom, the tension seems to leaves her muscles and she relaxes into Brooke’s caresses. Melts beneath her lips as they roam over her body. The past week of Brooke being away has felt like an eternity when all she could think about was how badly she wanted feel Vanessa beneath her. On top of her. Inside of her. 

 

Brooke thinks that whatever is bothering Vanessa has passed, but when it’s over and they’re laying in bed together, Vanessa tucks herself into Brooke’s side and her body stiffens and her hands start to fidget once more. 

 

Brooke sighs. “What is it, baby?”

 

Vanessa shakes her head and nuzzles deeper into Brooke’s neck. “It don’t matter.”

 

She wants to be able to let it go and give her the space to talk when she’s ready, but she’s been away for a week and she’s missed her girlfriend and all she wants is for things to feel normal again. 

 

“Did something happen?”

 

Vanessa inhales sharply and her hands stop fidgeting. She pulls back from Brooke to suit up in bed and cross her legs beneath her and Brooke realises that  _ oh, this is going to be one of these conversations. _

 

“Brooke, you know I love you.”

 

“I do.”

 

“And you know this year has been the best year of my life.”

 

“Mine too, baby.”

 

She looks down at her hands folded in her lap and then at the wall, and then at the corner of the bedding. Anywhere but into Brooke’s arm. 

 

“Well you know that sometimes change is a good thing, but sometimes changes can be scary because things might get fucked up or like change in a way that makes everything different and-“

 

She’s rambling and barely making sense but then she glances to the wardrobe and Brooke knows exactly what happened while she was away. 

 

“Ness,” Brooke tells her softly, “you found the ring, didn’t you?”

 

Vanessa sucks in a sharp breath and nods, blinking away the first traces of tears. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking for it, it just happened. And now I’ve ruined all your plans and I don’t know what to say I just-“

 

“I wasn’t going to propose to you.”

 

“Oh”

 

“-yet. I mean I wasn’t going to propose yet.”

 

Brooke shifts to sit a little closer to her and sits cross legged too, linking their hands in the middle. 

 

“I want to spend my life with you, Ness. I am never going to love anyone else the way that I love you. But marriage is such a big step and it can be scary and I wanted to talk to you about it first. I surprised you with asking you to move in, because you spent almost all of your time here anyways, but I would never propose unless I knew for sure that you were ready.”

 

Vanessa nods slowly and breathes a soft sigh of relief, then lifts Brooke’s hands to her lips and kisses her knuckles, whispering about how lucky she is to have a girlfriend that’s so caring and wise and perfect. She pulls Brooke into a kiss and Brooke teases her for thinking she could get away with keeping that bottled up inside of her for any longer. 

 

They settle back into the sheets and talk about marriage as a concept. They both have complex thoughts on the institution of marriage as a whole, and the unnecessary extravagance and expense of it all, but one thing is crystal clear. They want to send their lives together. And Brooke doesn’t think it needs to be any more complicated than that. But Vanessa is still chewing over something in her mind, so Brooke holds the thought back. 

 

“How did you get the ring?” 

 

Brooke tells Vanessa about how last month her mom had called round to the apartment whilst Vanessa had been out. She’d sat  Brooke down and for a moment, Brooke had felt like she was a little girl again. She’d offered to make tea, or open a bottle of wine, but Vanessa’s mom wanted to get right down to business. She pulled out the ring box and told Brooke that there was no pressure, but if she’s never seen Vanessa happier, and if she was ever planning on proposing, it would mean a lot to her if she used this ring. 

 

Brooke, being unable to process and express emotions in what may be considered a typical way, had opened up a bottle of wine anyways. She’d cried when Vanessa’s mom had told her that even if they didn’t want to get married, Brooke could still call her mama too, because anyone who makes her daughter’s eyes light up the way that they do now is a part of her family. 

 

Together,  Vanessa and Brooke take out the ring box and Vanessa tells Brooke about her grandmother. The woman who’d always taught her that nothing is worth doing by halves, but especially not loving. By the end of her story, Vanessa isn’t crying, which surprises Brooke. She’s looking at her with determination and adoration in her eyes, then she inhales and nods and gets out of bed to cross to the floor on Brooke’s side. 

 

“Brooke?”

 

She nods. 

 

Vanessa rolls her shoulders and takes a deep breath, then holds both of Brooke’s hands in hers and drops down on one knee. “Am I doing this right?” she chuckles lighty. 

 

Brooke shakes her head in disbelief. “What are you doing?” she whispers.

 

“Hand me the ring.” Her voice wobbles and her hand shakes as she holds out her open palm. 

 

“Ness,” Brooke starts, but she trails off when Vanessa thrusts her hand out more firmly. She takes the ring box and places it gently in Vanessa’s hand and for a moment, both of their hands curl around it and their eyes lock and they’re breathing heavily. 

 

“Vanessa, I thought you said-” Brooke tries, but the words won't come. 

 

“Do you want me to stop?”

 

“No, but-“

 

“Do you want me to stop?” Softer, this time. 

 

“No.”

 

Brooke nods. Vanessa nods. Both are grinning. 

 

“Well then, in that case, Brooke Lynn Hytes. My best friend. My soulmate. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you, and being loved by you. I don’t want to wait. I thought I did, but I don’t. I just want to love you. The good parts and the bad parts and everything in between. Will you marry me?”

 

Brooke says yes the moment Vanessa finishes speaking. She gets down from the bed and drops so that they’re kneeling across from one another, foreheads pressed, fingers linked. They’re laughing and kissing and crying, somehow all at the same time. Brooke insists that even though Vanessa slides the ring onto Brooke’s finger, Vanessa should be the one to keep it. They decide that in the morning they’re going to choose a ring for Brooke together. A ring that, too, can stay in their family for generations.

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

Vanessa knows she wants to be with Brooke for the rest of her life from the moment that she finds the ring, but it isn’t until Brooke tells her about how she wanted to wait and plan their future together that she realises she wants to marry her. At some point during her story about her grandmother, when Brooke is looking at her with awe, like she’s the most interesting person in the world, Vanessa is struck with the realisation that she doesn’t want to spend another minute not being engaged to her. 

 

Momentarily, she considers asking Brooke to ask her. But then she realises that there’s no reason it has to be that way around. Vanessa will always have the perfect, breathtaking memories of Brooke being the first to say I love you and Brooke asking her to move in to the apartment. The moments that still form a lump in her throat when she thinks about them for too long, because there’s no greater feeling than feeling adored and cherished. She wants Brooke to have a moment like that too. To feel like she’s the most important person in the world. Because to Vanessa, she is. 

 

So, she proposes. Because in their relationship, they jump off the cliff first and pray that they develop wings on the way down. 

 

Brooke seems reluctant to plan the wedding at first. It’s as though she’s overjoyed by the concept of marriage, but when it comes to the reality of planning the day itself, she can’t even talk about setting a date without her hands going clammy and changing the subject. So, one evening, they take wine and blankets up to the roof of Brookes building and sit out amongst the stars, ready to talk about everything that she’s feeling. 

 

Brooke tells Vanessa that she’s trying to be excited, but that everything about a wedding day sends her anxiety skyrocketing. Planning a list of people to invite and realising that her half of the list doesn’t go beyond her co-workers and a few aunts on her moms side. Having to speak from the heart during her vows in front of a room full of people. Spending all evening in an uncomfortable dress, surrounded by people trying to give her advice on love, as though loving Vanessa is something she needs to be taught how to do. 

 

She says that in a weird way, she doesn't want to allow anyone else to be a part of their day. Selfishly, she doesn’t want to share their happiness. As though somehow happiness is quantifiable and there isn’t enough to go around. 

 

Vanessa struggles to hide her disappointment. Ever since she was a kid, she’d always pictured a fairytale wedding. With a big white gown and all their crying families and and a day of celebrations, just like in the movies. 

 

But then she’d fallen in love with a woman who’s idea of hell is for her deepest emotions to be on display for an audience. And she’d proposed to her, knowing all of this, being ready to accommodate for her and accept that the only thing that truly matters is that both of them have the best day of their lives. 

 

They settle on a compromise. They fly with their closest friends from New York down to Florida, to be with Vanessa’s family. The wedding takes place on the beach, in delicate, gorgeous white sundresses and the sand between their toes. Only a handful of people attend the ceremony and Brooke manages to say her vows without her voice breaking. That evening they have a big party with the rest of Vanessa’s family and her friends from home, with everyone under strict instructions to keep any sappy remarks about love that they may have to themselves. It’s the perfect day for both of them, but nothing fills their hearts with more love and fulfilment than when they’re laying in bed together, giggling and whispering the words  _ you’re my wife _ on to one another’s lips. 

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

She stands on her side in the mirror, prodding at the slight swell of her belly. 

 

“I’m getting fat,” she grumbles. 

 

Vanessa gasps in an overdramatic, almost cartoonish way, and rushes to stand in front of Brooke. She places both palms flat on Brooke’s stomach and crouches down. “Don’t listen to her baby girl, your mama ain’t fat, she’s beautiful.”

 

Brooke swats Vanessa’s hands away and pulls her t-shirt back down to cover her slightly protruding bump. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

They’d made the decision together that they don’t want to find out the baby’s sex until their birth, but Vanessa has taken to calling the bump ‘baby girl’ all the same. Brooke knows that Vanessa is going to fall head over heels in love with their child from the very first moment, regardless of whether they have a boy or a girl, so it’s fine to let her speculate. 

 

Brooke pulls Vanessa tightly against herself and together they gaze at their reflections in the mirror. 

 

“Are you ready?” Brooke whispers. 

 

“Why? She coming today?”

 

Brooke chuckles and nuzzles into Vanessa’s side. “You know what I mean.”

 

She ponders for a moment, hand stroking small circles on Brooke’s abdomen. “I don’t think I’m ever gonna be ready.”

 

Brooke agrees. Financially, they’re prepared. In terms of their apartment, Vanessa has moved out of the spare room and into a real studio, and the space is empty, waiting to be filled with the baby’s things. Their relationship is strong enough to cope with the shift in dynamic that inevitably occurs when they go from being every part of the others world, to having a third person to shower with unconditional love. And they’ve signed up for every parenting class that they can find. 

 

But, fuck, she’s terrified. 

 

She’s scared that she’ll be an overbearing mom. Or too protective. Too cautious. That their son or daughter will want to rebel against her authority and drive them apart. She worries that she isn’t going to know what to do the first time their son or daughter gets sick, or how to handle it when she they cry. She finished her therapy years ago, but recently decided to take it up again. Mostly as a helping hand through the emotional highs and lows as a result of erratic pregnancy hormones, but also to attempt to work on her ability to be open. Because when their child is here, she wants to be the type of mom that they trust will understand them no matter what. 

 

It’s a slow process, trying to become less protective of her emotions and more willing to let them show, since this has been deeply ingrained in her for as long as she can remember, but she’s making progress. Maybe she’ll be ready before the baby’s birth, or maybe she’ll be in therapy for the rest of her life if that’s what it takes for her to be the best mom that she can be. But she knows that no matter how much progress she makes, she will always have Vanessa there. Every step of the way. 

 

Where Brooke is cautious, Vanessa will be whimsy. If Brooke wants to keep their child home from school when she hears a single cough, Vanessa will rub her shoulders soothingly and promise that everything’s going to be okay. And when their child’s heart breaks for the first time and they realise that sometimes life isn’t fair, if Brooke gets choked up and can’t string together the right words that she needs to say, Vanessa will hold their child and wait with them until she’s ready. 

 

When Brooke is weak, Vanessa will be strong. And vice versa. 

 

Most of the time they will both be strong. 

 

And some of the time they will both be weak. 

 

They’ll get things wrong and make bad decisions and maybe they’ll fight with each other, but they will never stay apart for long. Because they’re strongest when they’re together. 

 

Hand in hand. Taking life as it comes. Leaping off the diving board and locking eyes mid air as a silent reminder to keep focused. Keep loving. Keep growing.  

 

Keep breathing. 

 

**_Vanessa_ **

 

She lays in bed, on her side next to Brooke, tracing the scar on her lower abdomen with gentle touches. 

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

“Not as much anymore.”

 

Vanessa had just about passed out in the hospital at the sight of blood during Brooke’s c-section, and of course Brooke was more worried about Vanessa than the baby shaped hole in her stomach. But somehow, amidst their worrying and reassurances, the medical remained calm and suddenly the room was filled with a high-pitched cry and time stood still. Vanessa had wiped the damp, matted hair from her wife’s face and kissed her forehead and then together they’d been handed their baby and counted ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and fallen in love with his eyes. 

 

“You should be sleeping,” Vanessa tells Brooke, combing her fingers through her hair. “They say that when he’s sleeping, you should be sleeping.”

 

Brooke looks like she might protest, but instead she hums in content when Vanessa drags her nails lightly across her scalp. Vanessa loves their son more than she thought it was possible to love anybody that isn’t Brooke, he has single handedly redefined the definition of perfect, but the moments of peace that have seemed to be so few and far between over the past ten weeks are something she treasures. The moments when she can hold the woman she loves and kiss beneath her ear and remind herself that all of this is real. 

 

“Noah is going to wake up soon,” Brooke mumbles, half asleep already. She’s fighting to keep her eyes open but her body betrays her with a yawn and Vanessa cuddles in closer to her side. 

 

“And I’ll be here when he does.”

 

As she settles down ready to sleep, Brooke nudges Vanessa’s hand away from her abdomen and pulls down the hem of her soft cotton t-shirt.

 

“Sorry, was I hurting you?”

 

“No,” Brooke tells her quietly. 

 

Vanessa sighs. They’ve had this conversation many times over Brooke’s pregnancy and since the birth. Brooke seems to think that the stretch marks on her skin and the still healing scar are something to be ashamed of. It had taken a month and a half after the birth for Brooke to even let Vanessa see her with no shirt on. Vanessa has been patient and reassuring, telling her wife at every chance she gets that she is and always will be the most gorgeous woman alive, but Brooke still gets restless if Vanessa looks at her stomach for too long. 

 

Vanessa hopes that eventually Brooke will learn to love her new scar. She wants the scar to remind Brooke of determination and redemption and hope and love. It’s a chance for her to reclaim her body after all these years. Just like the scar from her assault, it’s a part of her life, a story mapped onto her skin with pale pink, bumpy lines. The two scars on her abdomen represent the best and worst days of her life, and having them there is something that Brooke should never have to apologise for. 

 

Vanessa doesn’t lift up Brooke’s shirt, but she snakes her hand beneath it, pressing her palm into the cool, soft skin. She wants to tell her that she’d fallen in love with her long before she’d seen her beauty in person, and she’s still going to be in love with her long after that beauty fades, but when she looks up she sees that Brooke is already asleep. 

 

**_Brooke_ **

 

Moving house is never an enjoyable experience at the best of times, but especially not when you can’t help out because you’re the size of a whale and theres a toddler running circles around your feet and every fucker in the city seems to be crammed into the apartment, trying to help out. Brooke is trying hard not to let her frustration manifest itself.

 

Nina and Monet are in the kitchen finishing the last of the cleaning, which Brooke is barred from doing because of the chemicals. Katya is directing the movers with boxes and furniture, with such precision and authority it’s like she’s running a military operation. Trixie is on the way back from the Starbucks on the street corner with iced coffee for everyone except for Brooke, who has to have a fruit smoothie instead. And when Brooke hears a loud crash from the dining room she decides that she doesn’t even want to know what Vanessa’s friends are up to in there. 

 

“Mommy, is it time to go yet?” Noah whines, tugging on Brooke’s sleeve. 

 

Brooke offers him a sympathetic smile and shakes her head. “Sorry little guy, we aren’t quite ready yet.”

 

He huffs in frustration and crosses his arms, which is a move he has  _ definitely _ learnt from his Mama. She supposes that the moving process must be long and dull and frustrating for him too. At least they’re in this together. She pulls him up onto the couch so that he can sit beside her and he rests his ear on Brooke’s large bump. 

 

“I wish the babies were here now.”

 

“I know, sweetheart,” she tells him, but fights back a scoff. Nobody wishes these babies would get out of her more than her, but with over a month left until her induction date, there’s still plenty of waddling around to go. She decides to kill the boredom by making a loop around the apartment, checking on everyone’s progress, but she barely makes it two steps before Vanessa enters the room. It’s like she has a sixth sense to detect when Brooke is over exerting. 

 

“I know you ain’t about to get up and start moving,” Vanessa warns. 

 

Noah pulls his hand away from Brooke’s and runs to Vanessa, who scoops him up off the floor and raises him above her head. “I thought I told you to make sure your mommy stays right here on this couch, hmm?” she teases. 

 

He giggles and Vanessa shifts him onto her hip as he whines about being bored and asks when they get to go to the new house, as though he hasn’t already asked Brooke fifteen times in the last hour. Brooke feels a little twinge of sadness in her heart when she notices Vanessa struggling to lift him as easily as she used to be able to. One day he’s going to be too big for her to carry, and that day is going to come far too quickly. 

 

“It won’t be much longer now,” Vanessa tells them both. She crouches to press two kisses onto Brooke’s bump, one on each side, for each of the girls. Then kisses Brooke’s cheek too, and lifts Noah up so that he can do the same. 

 

Brooke grins as she thinks about their new home waiting for them in the suburbs. With a porch and a yard and space for their children. The thought makes the excruciatingly long day of moving more bearable. She’s about to ask how much longer is  _ not much  _ when Trixie returns with their drinks. 

 

“Hey guys,” she calls as she enters the apartment, “the Starbucks across the street was closed so I had to get milkshakes from Mama Shuga’s instead.”

 

Nobody knows why Brooke and Vanessa can’t stop smiling at the mention of milkshakes from Mama Shuga’s. And nobody understands why they insist on sharing a strawberry one, even though there’s plenty to go around. They cram in three straws, so that Noah can have some too, and they giggle like fools as they all they to drink from the cup at the same time. 

 

Brooke slips her hand into Vanessa’s and laces their fingers together. Her pregnancy hormones have her crying at the drop of a hat, so she tries to fight the tears that form in her eyes as she conveys everything she needs to say to Vanessa with one gentle squeeze. 

 

_ It’s been six years since we shared a milkshake together and I’ve spent every day since falling in love with you. You’re my best friend and the love of my life and the mother of my children and I never think I can get any happier, but then you’ll flash me a smile and I realise how wrong I was. I want to spend our lives sharing milkshakes with you and our babies and our babies’ babies. I love you more than you could possibly know.  _

 

Vanessa nods softly and and Brooke knows she understands. 

 

She will always understand. Time after time. Week after week and year after year. Highs and lows. Summer and winter and storms and desserts. 

 

Night and day. 

 

Forever. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This final chapter really has been a labour of love. 12k words! I hope it’s not too much. I got carried away with it all and there didn’t seem to be a good point to split it into two chapters. I hope the wait has been worth it. 
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has followed this fic from beginning to end. I hope I have managed to give my versions of Brooke and Vanessa the happy endings that they deserve, but if there are any loose threads that you feel haven’t been wrapped up then please say! Any feedback is good feedback! Letting me know what you think, either on here or on tumblr, means so so much to me, and it’s one of my biggest inspirations for writing, so if you’d like to see more from me, you know what to do!
> 
> For anyone that follows me on tumblr, you make have seen that I’m planning on writing a multi chaptered au set on on a shuttle to Mars, featuring Branjie, Scyvie and Trixya. But I start a new job on Monday, so the start of that fic has been delayed slightly. In the meantime, I’d love to keep writing short fics, so please drop me any prompts that you may have. 
> 
> Also sorry for my obnoxiously long authors note! Lots of love to everyone who has made it to the end.
> 
> \- Kite 💕


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